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THE LIBRARY OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF

NORTH CAROLINA

THE COLLECTION OF

NORTH CAROLINIANA

ENDOWED BY

JOHN SPRUNT HILL

CLASS OF 1889

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This book must not
be token from the
Library building.

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Form No. 471

THE BLUE RIDGE SERIES

AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

So, in a moment more I felt myself — I who had
never been thrown in my life — going over Paprika's
head.

AZALEA'S
SILVER WEB

BY

ELIA W. PEATTIE

Author of Azalea ; Annie Laurie and Azalea ;
Azalea at Sunset Gap, etc.

Illustrations hy
E. R. Kirkhride

The Reilly & Britton Co.

Chicago

Copyright, 1915

by

The Reilly & Britton Co.

Azalea's Silver Web

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I Grown Girls 9

II New Relations 11

III Own Folk 46

IV Madam Grandmother ... 64
V Mallowbanks 82

VI My Ball 101

VII Getting Settled 120

VIII The Portrait 139

IX Grandmother's Story . . . .158

X " The Waters of Quiet " . . . 177

XI A Friend . 195

XII A Travel Log 212

XIII Crossroads 231

XIV " Where There Is a Will " . . 250
XV "Ring, Happy Bells" ... 267

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

So, in a moment more I felt myself — I
who had never been thrown in my life —
going over Paprika's head Frontispiece

We stepped back in the shrubbery and
kept very still while they passed.
Grandmother was weeping like a hurt
child 84

Azalea's Coming Out Party 1 14

It was Keefe O'Connor who stood there
holding out his hands to me 276

AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

CHAPTER I

GROWN GIRLS

Tennyson Mountain, N. C,

October 6.
Carin, dear and far:

So you are back at your beloved Vassar!
Does it seem as wonderful as it did last year?
Or more so? More so, I expect. You were a
little lonely and strange last year, you know.
But now it will be different. The girls will
seem like old friends to you now that you are
coming back to them. But, Carin, girl, they
cannot possibly be such old friends as I
am, or as Annie Laurie is. Don't dare to like
one of them better than you like us. I can
imagine, and really spend too much time
imagining, just how lovely and cultivated and
surprising some of them are. But, please, aren't
some of them quite stupid, too? I hope so.

9

10 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

Annie Laurie hopes so. We want still to be the
brightest stars in your sky.

Lest you should think we are not, we keep
polishing ourselves. Annie Laurie, when she
is not attending to her dairy, will take university
extension work. And I, your own ever adoring,
ever grateful Azalea, will keep hammering
away at the books that dear Barbara Summers
lends, and Keefe O'Connor sends down from
New York, and those that your own library at
the Shoals furnishes.

I have the heart to read, Carin, but not the
time. That's the truth. Or, come to think of
it, perhaps it is a matter of eyelids. I have a
queer, self-closing pair. If they would stay up
after nine o'clock at night I could learn some-
thing. But, no, they appear to be attached to a
wheel or a ratchet in the clock, and when nine
strikes, down they go and down they stay.

What can I do?

Nothing, except kiss dearest Mother McBir-
ney good night, trying not to yawn in her face
as I do it, and after paying my respects to
Father McBirney and " brother " Jim, slip away
up to my darling loft.

Now, there, Carin! You see I'm nicer than

GROWN GIRLS 11

your other friends, more unusual and surpris-
ing. (You told me the last time I saw you that
you liked your friends to be unusual and sur-
prising.) Well, have you any other friend who
goes up to her bedroom by means of an outside
pair of stairs and who sleeps in a loft, with a
tame bat for company? You have not, Carin
Carson, and you know it. And, Oh, how I love
it! Shall I ever have another room I love so
well? The soft noises of the night come purling
down into it like a stream. The stars of the
northern sky shine into it. The mountain-side
is like a green curtain hanging before it. When
I get up in that little room, my doors and win-
dows wide to old Mount Tennyson's whispering
side, I seem to find my real self. Everything
slips away from me except the night and myself
and — and God.

Dearest Carin, I am feeling rather serious. It
is because of something that I have just come
to realize. Do you remember how, at the end
of our school-teaching up at Sunset Gap three
years ago, your father and mother ofifered to
send me away to school, and I — thanking them
more than I could possibly make them under-
stand— refused? I said I wanted it to be

12 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

Azalea for herself. That I meant to spin my
own little web, and that I hoped it would be
a silver one.

Since then, as you know, I have tried my
best. I decided that I would become a teacher
of the mountain handicrafts; I hoped that some
day when good Mrs. Kitchell resigned her posi-
tion as head of the Mountain Industries which
your father and mother established, that I could
take her place. What is more, I wanted to
develop the Industries so that they would
become much, much more useful and inspiring
and important than they are now. I wanted,
too, to fit myself to meet all the people who
come to Lee — all the charming, gracious peo-
ple. You know how I have worked for all
this. Haystack Thompson, the best basket-
maker in the country, has taught me to make
baskets. Mrs. Kitchell, the cleverest little
weaver of all the weavers, has instructed me
in the weaving of woolen and linen and cotton
cloth, and in the making of counterpanes,
as well as the knotting of fringe and the loop-
ing of fancy edges. Mother McBirney has
taught me knitting and lace making and cro-
cheting. I can do a little wood carving. I

GROWN GIRLS 13

can make mats. I can weave carpets. Even, if
put to it, I can turn a jug. Then I have read
and studied and thought. And in doing all
that I have grown vain and foolish.

I'll tell you how I found out.

Dear Father McBirney isn't well. I think
I spoke about this to you the other day. But
he's been getting rapidly worse, and now he
can hardly move from his chair. It is rheu-
matism; and it's likely to stay with him for a
long, long time. He cannot help about the
farm at all, and so all of the farm work falls
on Jim. He can't even go about the country
to collect the chairs the mountaineers make for
the Mountain Industries, as he promised your
father he would.

Oh, Carin, do you remember the day you
and your father and mother came up to our
cabin to ask my foster-parents to go down and
take charge of the Industries? And do you
remember how Pa and Ma looked about at
the darling cabin with its wistaria and trumpet
vine, and its Pride of India tree with the graves
of their little Molly and my own dear mama
beneath it, and how they would not go? And
then do you recall how Father McBirney

14 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

promised to " beat up trade " for the Indus-
tries, and so we all stayed in the cabin with
its nice open room in between the closed ones,
and its own queer little smithy, and its beehives
on the south slope, and its martin houses by
the door? Oh, the dear, dear little house!

Well, there has been such a demand for the
mountain chairs from the visitors to Lee, that
the chair-makers have been making a good
profit and Father McBirney has been enjoy-
ing a nice commission. This winter he quite
depended on it, because, owing to his bad
health, he hadn't been able to do as much with
the farm as usual. But now he isn't well
enough to go over the mountains arranging
about the chairs, or getting them together, so
even that little profit is denied us.

What are we to do? Jim may be able to
do some hauling for people; there's wood to
be carted, and some work to do for the miller,
but it's very irregular.

And this is where I come in. This is
where I am shown up as a person with much
vanity and little common sense. For, of course,
it should be my part to make ready money for
the family. And I can't. I don't know how.

GROWN GIRLS 15

I have been thinking I was so capable, and now
I see I'm just as useless as — as most girls!

Of course I could go away somewhere else
and perhaps find some other place where the
mountain industries are being developed. But
ought I to leave home now? I seem to be
very much needed. As you know, sometimes
our sweet, unselfish Mother McBirney gets
melancholy. She has lived so long away up
here on the mountain that her thoughts get
to turning inward, and she remembers about
Molly's death, and then for days she is silent
and brooding, and we all tremble for her. She
looks far, far away and pays almost no attention
to what we say to her. This is a very real
danger, and if I were not here to shake her out
of these moods, who knows what might happen?

So there I am, I who wanted to do such
wonderful independent things, I who thought
I had learned so much, about as useless as any-
one could be. At least, as a money-earner.
Of course I am not sitting about, beating my
breast and throwing dust on my head. I hope
you don't think that. No, I have Mother
McBirney's loom in good working order, and
have set it up not too far away from the fire-

16 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

place, and I am throwing that shuttle like mad,
weaving some perfectly fascinating counter-
panes. You ought to see the one in red and
black in the Tudor rose pattern. Truly, it's a
beauty. I know I can sell it easily enough, and
I'm going to charge a good price for it, too.
I'm a greedy pig.

But you see, I must have money.

By rights, Father McBirney ought to have a
change. He should go down to Bethal Springs.
The waters there are said to cure some terrible
cases of rheumatism. But he couldn't go with-
out Mother; and Mother wouldn't go w^ithout
Jim. So there you are. Such a puzzle!

Jim is dreadfully on my mind, too. What
do you think has happened to him? He has
" got religion." Yes, I know you are laughing.
Jim, the tease of the world, Jim with freckles
and warts and funny words, and the very
dickens in him. But it is true. Mr. Summers
did it — talked to him in the woods, and Jim
'' saw the light." And now he wants to be a
preacher like Mr. Summers. You ought to
hear him preaching to the horses when he
combs them down. I listen. Perhaps I ought
not to. I don't do it to make fun, you may

GROWN GIRLS 17

be sure. I do it because the poor boy is so
earnest and surprising. You can't think what
beautiful things he says. Nights he studies the
Bible and some books Mr. Summers gives him.
He drives away to town once every week to
help with the Epworth League meeting, and he
has got up some sort of a society among the
boys, and has induced the members to pledge
themselves not to drink whiskey or chew
tobacco, or use profane words, or do any other
horrid thing.

Our Jim!

Carin, we're all growing up, aren't we?

You with your long dresses and touch-me-
not air, and Annie Laurie, one of our leading
business persons! And Sam Disbrow buying
stock in Annie Laurie's dairy, and Hi Kitchell
doing draying, and Dick Heller going in the
bank, and Keefe O'Connor sending me the cat-
alogue of his " Autumn Exhibit." You can
fancy how Keefe played up Sunset Gap in his
pictures! I could tell from the names where
he had painted about half of them. I'll send
you the catalogue. But return it, won't you?
It seems like a memento of that queer, wild,
happy summer at the Gap.

18 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

That was the last summer we really spent
together. To be sure I have had glimpses of
you, but usually you have been away on your
wonderful journeys with your father and
mother, and I have had to go about the moun-
tain roads alone. But I haven't minded, Carin,
and you mustn't think that I have. I tried to
picture the beautiful places you were in, and
the parties you were going to, and the pictures
and palaces you were seeing, and I knew that
if I was thinking of you, that you were think-
ing of me, too. It kept my heart warm; it
peopled the lonely mountain roads.

I'll tell you this, my Carin: Next to a
well-loved human face, a well-loved road is
the best thing. The sight of a familiar clump
of grass can be as dear as a threshold. Twists
of tree trunks, odd embankments, colors of the
road, above all, the turns of a road, get to be
like a part of one's life. The little smells that
come up from earth and grass and flower, rising
over and over again from the same place, affect
one almost like the voices of ^^ home folk."
Even the wind on the face, though the wind
is so wild and strange a thing, makes one feel
at ease in one's world; and the burst of the

GROWN GIRLS 19

sun over a hill, or the going down of it at the
close of a busy day — busy both for you and
the sun — can make you realize as few things
can, that you are the child of God — of the
great Father, so silent, so unknowable, who has
made suns and birds, mountains and little
friendly crickets.

Oh, beautiful, beautiful life! In spite of
trouble and sickness, perplexity and poverty,
beautiful, beautiful life!

Dear Carin, don't laugh at me if my letter
has been a bit too ecstatic. You are surrounded
all the time with fine teachers and brilliant
friends, and moving, shifting life. I am just
here by myself, so to speak. Yes, yes, dear, I
know my own McBirneys are beside me. I
have no desire deeper than the desire to help
them. Yet, Carin, are they my kind of people?
You know they are not; they know it. We try
to be alike, but we cannot be, really.

I am the granddaughter of Colonel Atherton
on one side; the granddaughter of some other
proud old gentleman on the other side. For
it was pride that made my grandfather Knox
turn his son, my father, adrift. True, the
McBirneys took me, a little ragged wanderer.

20 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

orphaned and desolate, from a traveling show;
but that was an accident in my life. It cannot
change the fact that I have the tastes of the
Athertons and the Knoxes, who have loved
beauty and hospitality and other gracious
things.

Oh, me, am I insinuating that Mother
McBirney is not hospitable or that she does
not love beauty? If so, shame on me. Her
door stands open to every wanderer. It stood
open to me. The flowers about her walls, and
the purple valley below her hill, delight her.
Yes, she is a true lover of beauty. May we
never lose sight of each other, and to the last
may I feel her hand waiting to grasp mine in
whatever darkness she or I may have to walk
through. I only say I wish I might, sometimes,
have someone like you, my Carin, to talk with.
Of course, there is Barbara Summers. But she
is in the valley and I on the mountain.

Equally of course, there are Keefe O'Con-
nor's letters. And there are yours. Be sure
you send me one soon.

Do not mind my changing moods. I am,
after all, always the same old

Azalea

GROWN GIRLS 21

P. S. This is the evening of the same day.

Who do you think called?

Mrs. Kitchell, Hi's little brown mother, all
in new clothes, with white cotton gloves on
her hands — the hands that used to be so hard
and scratched and battered with work. She
had a red rose on her new fall hat, and her
shoes were blacked. And you know what
shoes are at Lee! The standard is low, owing
to red mud and lack of elbow activity. But
Mrs. Kitchell was grand. There is no other
word for it.

This, however, is not the most exciting part
of what I have to tell. Haystack Thompson
was with her, and he actually wore a hat. Yes,
he did too, Carin Carson. What is more, his
hair had been cut — a little. But you could
get seven crops a year of his hair, just as you
can of alfalfa. He, too, was wonderful. He
wore a collar. It was of celluloid, and it shone
like Mother McBirney's best milk pan. He
did not bring his fiddle, and that made me feel
sad. If he wants to court Hi's " ma," why let
him, but is that any reason why he should turn
his back on his faithful Betsy, his fiddle?

I felt like saying to him: " Haystack, Hay-

THE BOOK NOOK

124 S. W. 24

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA.

22 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

stack, can any woman understand you, answer
you, listen to you, rejoice with you, as your
fiddle did? Will any woman cost you so little?
Ask so few questions? Be such a companion
on rainy and sunshiny days?"

But of course I didn't say anything of the
kind. Little Mrs. Kitchell is a brave creature,
and Haystack is a lonely one. So if they decide
to marry, I and everyone else ought to be glad.
The only thing that really troubles me is how
they are going to live. Dear Haystack never
earns any money, except in little driblets,
making baskets or playing at dances. Do you
suppose that after that little beaver, Mrs.
Kitchell, has reared a family of four, alone
and unaided, that she'll turn in and support
Haystack in his old age? Wouldn't that be
odd of her? Still, perhaps she might like it.
Hi, as I say, is " draying." He has a pair of
claybank mules and he is a proud man, I can
tell you. He works quite as hard as anybody
in Lee — harder than most. But he doesn't
like to be " driv." You know he wouldn't.

" When will that trunk be up to the house,
expressman? " the Northerners say, not so much
as looking at him.

GROWN GIRLS 23

Then you ought to hear Hi drawl. You
know his drawl! But it's grown worse.

" Sometime along in the forenoon, I reckon,
ma'am."

" Aren't you sure of it? Because if you
aren't, I shall get another man to bring it up."

" Yessum. Only I'm the only one in town
jest now that does trunk haulin'. But don't
you worry, ma'am. I feel tollable sure that
there trunk will git up to you-all's house some
time before evenin'."

You can just hear the Northerners pant when
he says that.

I know you and your people are Northern-
ers, Carin, dear, but you're not the snap-turtle
variety.

I do wish you'd been down here this sum-
mer. I had so much to tell you. The Shoals
looked very lonely with none of you in it.
Was it so lovely up there in Maine that you
forgot our purple mountains? I know it must
be beautiful up there. I look at the map, and
follow all the queer little inlets and outlets,
and think how bright the water must be as it
breaks on the rocks.

Well, we have had wonderful things to look

24 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

at ourselves. Why, only to-day the mountains
looked like gigantic plums, with rich purple
bloom all over them; and the sky went to the
trouble to try to match them. But I'd have
enjoyed it more if I hadn't been so poor. Not
that I'm any poorer than usual, but I feel
poorer because I see that at last it is " up to
me " to be the money-maker. And I don't
know how to begin.

I have explained to you distinctly a number
of times, my dear Carin, that when I write
this way I do it to ease my feelings. I want
your advice. But that is all I do want of you,
except, of course, your love and sympathy.
I know you ache to play fairy godmother.
You've tried to do that many times. But I
think you understand pretty well by now that
that wouldn't really help me out. I want my
own fight, my own life, my own victories. Just
at present I'm terribly puzzled, because I want
to help Father and Mother McBirney and Jim.

I can't write it all to Keefe, because — well
because he might be able to think of a way to
help me out, but not of a way to help the others.
Keefe is terribly impulsive, and he will not
realize how young he is. He is disgracefully

GROWN GIRLS 25

young. So am I. That extreme youthfulness
of ours gets in the way of some of his plans.
No, I can't write him. He isn't sensible. Per-
haps that is one of the reasons he paints so well.
Did I tell you he was making rather a specialty
of portraits? He sent me one of a young
Jewish girl who is in his color class at the
Academy of Design. He says her name is
Miriam. She fits the name.

Keefe wants to come down here this winter,
but I'm not going to let him. There is no
reason why he should come to this one place
out of all the places in the world. Let him
go up to Sunset Gap to his own wonderful
little sister, Mary Cecily Rowantree. He says
he needs inspiration, but if anyone can give it
to him, she can. You see, if he came here, he
would be terribly interrupting, and I cannot
and will not be interrupted. I'm going to earn
the living for the family, though, as I said at
the beginning, I don't know how.

Carin, I go out and sit down beside my dear
little mama's grave and think and think. I
tell her how good these people were to her,
how good they have been to me ever since that
terrible day when I was left alone, and I beg

26 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

her if she is indeed a spirit now, who can see
and understand the things that are hidden from
us earth-bound ones, that she will put some-
thing into my heart to tell me what to do.

I am ready, Carin, to prove myself. Here
I am with my strong body, with my heart full
to bursting with gratitude and love, with my
waiting hands and brain. But I need direc-
tion. You couldn't give me that, could you,
dear yellow-headed one?

Yes, I wish you might have come home this
summer. It would have helped. Barbara
Summers was away, too. She went home to
see her people for the first time since she was
married. You remember her people didn't
approve of her marriage. She had a very
happy time, and all is well between her and
them at last. Of Annie Laurie I see little. She
is too busy. But we signal each other, she from
her roof, I from the " Outlook."

Good-bye, dear. If I write you too much,
forgive me. I need to write. It comforts me.
You understand all I say — all I do not say,
too.

Lovingly, always,

Azalea

CHAPTER II

NEW RELATIONS

" Little Windows," Mount Hebron, N. C,

October 20th.
Dearest Car in:

Yes, the letter is from Azalea, though she is
in a place that neither you nor she ever heard
of before.

" Little Windows."

Are you wondering what they are, or what
it is?

It is the name of a cottage on the top of
Mount Hebron. You have seen Hebron, look-
ing like a cloud, from the top of our own
Mount Tennyson.

The cottage belongs to Mr. and Mrs. David
Knox, and, Oh, Carin, they —

But I must begin at the beginning.

In my last letter I told you how wretched
Father McBirney was feeling. Well, he grew
worse and worse, till at last he did not know

27

28 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

a moment when he was free from pain. Jim
and I tried to keep things going, but it was
hard. We began to grow anxious about money
and the bare necessaries. Then I said:

" I'm going out to see about the mountain
chairs. I'm going to ride Paprika over the
mountains and get up the contracts with the
chair-makers. Then, if they'll not haul them
to market, Jim must."

Mother objected. So did Father. I reminded
them how they had always said that a woman
was perfectly safe in these mountains. But it
was different, it seemed, when the woman was
their own girl. However, I overcame their
objections, and one rainy morning I set forth
on my pony with my saddlebags well packed
with food and clothing, and with carefully
written directions from Father McBirney in
my pocket.

'' Stick to them there orders," said Pa, " and
you can't go wrong, Zalie. Except, maybe at
the Trillers. I said for you to go to where the
branch turns by the two black gums, but it
might so be that Triller has cut down them
gums. Seems as if he can't take no rest while
there's a tree standin' around his place. But

NEW RELATIONS 29

anyhow, if you follow the branch after it takes
a bend — that is to say, after you have taken
the right-hand road turning ofJ from the Ses-
sion's pike — then you can't a-miss it."

" I don't mean to miss it," I declared.
" Don't you worry, you two."

Jim wasn't at home. I made a point of going
while he was down at Lee with some timber.
He never would have let me go in peace.

I was not at all afraid. Indeed, I was very
happy. I grew up on the road, as you remem-
ber, Carin. It isn't as if I always had been
house-bound. The woods were very still and
lovely, with gray veils falling in among the
trees, and the distance all hidden. The great
tree trunks with their green moss and their
lichen looked beautiful. I had been feeling
a little gray in my mind, and the day just
suited me.

By noon, though, I was chilly and rather
miserable, though my raincoat kept me dry
enough. But I was longing for a house, as
you may well imagine, and just then, sure
enough, I saw a tiny cabin in a clearing. I
slipped ofif Paprika, and knocked at the door.
No one answered. A smell of wood smoke

30 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

came out from the chimney and I knew there
was a fire inside, and I did want awfully to
sit by it. Really, my teeth were chattering.
So I tried the door. It was not locked, and
I went in and crouched before the fire in the
great blackened fireplace. It was very homy,
with its great kettle of soup hanging over the
coals, and its comfortable mountain chairs,
thickly padded with cushions covered with but-
ternut homespun. There were braided rugs
on the floor, and in the darkest corner, one
lofty bedstead with posts and a wonderful
pieced bedquilt. I wouldn't go so far as to
say that everything was outrageously clean, but
on the other hand, it was not disagreeably
unclean — just an easy medium. Anyway, the
fire was a blessing and the soup a temptation.

So what do you think I did?

Yielded to temptation, of course. I dished
myself out a good helping of the soup, took
some of my own bread from my lunch box,
and ate till I was satisfied. Meantime, I had
got as warm as toast and felt as if I had lived
in that house forever. Then I took a little
snapshot picture of myself from my notebook
and laid it on the table with some loaf sugar,

NEW RELATIONS 31

some coffee and a fine piece of Mother McBir-
ney's honey cake, and wrote:

This is the picture of the girl who sat by
your fire and ate some of your soup. It is the
first time she ever helped herself to anything,
but she enjoyed it so much that she means to
stop again the next time she is passing and see
if there is some more of that delicious soup
and to ask how it is made. Here are some
little presents, which please accept.

Azalea McBirney

Well, this is just an incident, and I only
mention it to show you what a happy time I
had at the beginning. I could not dream how
things would change with me.

In the early afternoon I visited two of the
houses to which I was to go, and arranged
about the number and kinds of chairs the men
were to furnish. I drew up contracts for them
to sign, for I thought that would be business-
like. Anyway, it pleased me to do it, and I
think the chair-makers liked it too. It gave
both of us a nice efficient feeling. They wanted
me to stay at the last house I visited, and there
was such a darling little baby there that I
almost did, but I decided that I'd better be

32 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

getting on and try to reach the Triller's before
sundown. Paprika was getting a bit fagged,
but I know how quickly she rests up, so I
hurried her along, getting, I confess, just a
trifle worried as I found myself on strange
roads, with the mist settling all about me.

It was very still. The mist seemed to muffle
everything. No birds were singing, and I
could not hear any creature in the woods, nor
any falling water, and as there was no wind,
the trees were motionless. Everything rested
under a gray enchantment, and it gave me a
very strange feeling. Yet I liked it. I felt as
if something were going to happen.

And something did. But, Carin, it was not
in the least what I would have imagined or
wished for. It was as different as it could
possibly be.

I have said that everything was very still —
Oh, perfectly still. Then came a noise from
afar, like a gathering wind, yet not a leaf
stirred on the trees. The sound grew louder
and louder. It seemed like a tempest. I trem-
bled and so did Paprika. A moment later
around the turn of the gray road came a sort
of monster — an awful thing, all snout and

NEW RELATIONS 33

flaming eyes. I knew in one terrible second
what it was, of course.

An automobile — the first I ever had seen,
face to face and eye to eye. Paprika, who had
not looked at pictures to any great extent —
except, perhaps, those on bill boards — did not
know at all what it was. She gave one wild
scream like a wounded horse and dashed
straight up the bank. Then she looked back
over her shoulder as if doubting her senses,
saw the horrible thing again, heard its roaring
and snuffling, and plunged on. There in the
thick of the woods, with the mist still gather-
ing, I could not see how to guide her, and
anyway, she was beyond management. So, in
a moment more I felt myself — I who never
had been thrown in my life — going over her
head.

And that was all, Carin dear, for four days,
so they tell me. Four days.

You will wonder where I was when I opened
my eyes. This letter paper will tell you. I
was, and I am, at " Little Windows," which
is the name, as I have already explained, of
a cottage on the top of Mount Hebron. Of
course I can not say for sure that it is the love-

34 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

liest place in the world, for I have seen but
few places, not being like you, Carin, darling,
forever going to beautiful spots. But at any
rate it is lovely beyond my power to describe,
with its great valleys and gulches, and its near
acquaintance with stars and sun risings and
moon settings.

When first I opened my eyes I was in a
quiet bedroom. The walls were silver gray,
and of wood. There were no pictures. The
little windows were without curtains and looked
right out at the wonderful world. It was sun-
set and from where I lay I could see it, crimson
as the banners of a king. I could hear a fire
leaping and rejoicing in some room beyond,
and voices — two voices. A man and a woman
were talking together, rather anxiously, I
thought.

" They are talking of me," I decided. And
then I began to remember.

" Is my neck broken? " I asked myself. And
I wriggled it. It wriggled in the good old way.

"It's my back!" I decided. So I tried to
sit up. I was pretty dizzy, but my back worked
perfectly. I tried both legs and both arms.
They were just as active as I could wish. I

NEW RELATIONS 35

poked my ribs. They appeared to be in their
right places. And then I grew frightfully
weary. I wanted to cry, yet I felt it would
be too much of an effort. It seemed as if I
were sinking down, down through gray mist.
Everything floated away from before me, and
I knew nothing more for a time.

Then somebody brought in a light. It was
not a very large or a very bright light, but
it managed to reach the queer, shadowy place
where I was living, and to make me open my
eyes.

" How do you do, ma'am?" I heard myself
saying.

The lady who carried the lamp nearly
dropped it. But she controlled herself and
set it on a table. Then she came and hung
over me and said in a voice that trembled:

" I'm very well, thank you. How are you? "

We have both laughed about it since — about
our speaking to each other in that queer formal
way. But we had to make some sort of a begin-
ning, and perhaps that was as good as any.

" I am all right, thank you, ma'am," I said.
'' I tried myself all over a while ago, and there
is nothing broken."

36 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

" No," said the lady, " there is nothing
broken." But she looked at me doubtfully,
and with a queer kind of curiosity.

" Do you remember that you were hurt? "
she asked. " That you were thrown from your
horse and hurt? "

I nodded.

" My pony? " I asked. " Is she well? "

" Oh, yes, she's all right. She wasn't hurt.
But you were, and my husband — it was his
machine that frightened your pony — picked
you up and brought you here."

" Thank you," I said. Then I began to wish
she would go away and leave me alone. I
wanted to go back into that queer, gray, silent
place of mine again, where sort of shadowy
things went by in a long procession, without
one of them stopping to bother me with ques-
tions. I did think I would enjoy looking at the
lady and see what she was like, but I was too
lazy and so I decided I would do that another
time. Only I could see that she was tall, that
her hair was golden, and that she was very
thin. That seemed enough for the present; so
I closed my eyes.

Then presently I felt someone putting some-

NEW RELATIONS 37

thing between my lips. It was soup. And that
made me laugh. I thought about the house
where I had helped myself to the soup. I
had liked it better than this — it had had more
flavor.

"What are you laughing about?" asked the
lady.

I felt terribly silly. I remembered some-
thing from " Alice."

" Soup of the evening, beautiful soup," I
said. Then I laughed some more. I couldn't
quit. Suddenly I heard a voice roaring:

"Stop that!"

So I stopped and looked to see who had
spoken to me that way. It was a tall man —
a terribly tall man. The shadow of him ran
along the floor for yards and doubled up on
the ceiling.

" Who are you? " I asked. I was quite angry.

Then he bowed — and you ought to have
seen that shadow bow at the same time. It
was the funniest thing, and it nearly set me off
again, but I crumpled up the sheet in my hands
and squeezed it as hard as I could to keep from
giggling.

" David Knox," said the gentleman, " who

38 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

was unfortunate enough to be the cause of all
of your trouble."

" I am glad to meet you," I said politely.
His bow was so nice I forgave him for yelling:
"Stop that!"

'' Lorena," he said under his voice, " I think
everything is going to be all right."

Now you wouldn't think that remark would
make me laugh, would you? Oh, Carin, I'm
so ashamed of it, now I remember. But I
began to sing:

" ' The years roll slowly by, Lorena,' " and
then when I couldn't think of the next line I
cried: "Why doesn't somebody tell me what
comes next? "

Well, they told me if I didn't keep still they
would go out and leave me alone. I didn't
want to be left alone, because just then I took
a sort of turn and was afraid to sink down
into that gray, still place where I had been.
So I said:

" Oh, please stay, please stay, and I will tell
you why I laughed at the soup."

So before they could stop me I had told them
about it.

" Some day," I said, " I am going back and

NEW PvELATIONS 39

call on that woman. I will give her some
patterns for weaving, and maybe she will have
some old, old ones that she will give me."

"Can you weave?" asked the lady. "You
are very young and — and not a mountain girl,
are you? "

" Oh, I'm a mountain girl," I said, remem-
bering back just as far as dear Mother McBir-
ney and the cabin with my bedroom in the
loft. " I'm Azalea McBirney of Tennyson
Mountain, and I'm — I'm a weaver."

" Azalea," murmured the lady. " That was
the name of poor Jack's wife, wasn't it? I
always thought it a sweet name."

Som.ething shot through my brain. It was
like a stroke of lightning. It was the strangest
thing that ever happened to me. In a second,
by some power I can't explain, I began to
know things. I saw them as if they were a
vision. I sat right up in bed, and pushed my
hair back from my face. I recollect that I
kept pushing it back and pushing it back, as if
it got in between me and what I wanted to
understand.

"What Jack? What Jack?" I demanded.

" Jack Knox, my dead brother," said the man

40 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

soothingly. " No one you know I am sure, my
dear. Don't excite yourself, please."

"Jack Knox! Jack Knox!" I said. "That
was the man that married my little mama and
left her to care for me alone. Jack Knox! No,
I don't know him. I don't remember him at
all. And I'm glad of it. Jack Knox! Jack
Knox!"

You know it isn't like me, Carin, to feel
angry at anyone. But my mind seemed to have
no resistance. Whatever idea got into it insisted
on raging around in it. I couldn't stop it. I
was ashamed, and yet I couldn't manage myself.

I felt the lady, Mrs. Knox, taking hold of
me with those long, soft, cool hands of hers
and forcing me back on the bed.

" Lie still," she begged. " Do lie still, Miss
Azalea. You mustn't care about anything. No
one shall do you any harm, and we'll not even
let troublesome ideas come near you if we can
help it."

" Did you not say," said the gentleman, " that
your name was McBirney? "

" Yes, yes, McBirney. Don't you know Ma
and Pa McBirney? Why, everyone knows
them. They take orphans in. At least they

NEW RELATIONS 41

took me in. They would have taken my little
mama in, only she was dead, so they put her
beneath the Pride of India tree beside their
own Molly. You can go see for yourself. You
will know the house by the Pride of India
tree and the gourds before the door. The
gourds are for the martins — dozens and
dozens of martins. The martins will show
you the way if you like. Or the bees — thou-
sands of bees."

" Hush, hush," whispered the lady. " David,
go and take the light. Hush, Azalea, hush.
It is all right. Your little mama would want
you to hush."

She began singing the song with her own
name in it.

" The years roll slowly by, Lorena."

I went to sleep. But this time it was dif-
ferent. I did not seem to be sinking into that
chilly gray place where the visions were. I
just went to sleep the way I ought.

The next morning when I awoke I was quite
sensible and calm. I saw the world as it was,
and remembered all my life, and knew that I
had come by a strange, strange chance, among
my dead father's people. David Knox was his

42 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

elder brother, arxd Lorena Knox, with her yel-
low hair and her long cool hands, was David's
wife. It made me deeply satisfied — not
exactly happy, but deeply satisfied.

I ate the breakfast they brought me, and
after a while I was taken out into the sitting
room. It was a beautiful room, large and
square and quiet, with a great fireplace of gray
stone, and more little uncurtained windows
looking out at the green and purple world.
So then I sat up and looked at these people.

" I have never before seen anyone save my
little poor mama who belonged to me," I said.
" It is very' strange, to be here with you."

" Do you like it? " asked Mrs. Knox.

" I am a little afraid," I said.

"V/hy?"

" Because I want you to like me and I am
afraid you may not."

"Oh, but why? We already do!"

" Do you? Oh, I'm glad. Life has been — "

" How has it been? "

" Lonesome, sometimes. Interesting, of
course, and nice, but lonesome. I was always
taking favors from other people. I had no one
of my own. There was only — only the Pride

NEW RELATIONS 43

of India tree with mama under it. I used to
go out and talk to it, but — "

" Hush," said the lady. " Do not weep.
Azalea. Save all your strength for our sakes.
I cannot doubt that what you tell me is true.
I want you to see something."

She brought me a little album open at the
face of a young man. Carin, darling, when I
looked at it, I knew it was the face of my
father. It was like my own face, only a man's
and bolder. And yet, so like!

" My father! " I said. " I never saw his face
before."

'' It is wonderfully like your own," said Mr.
Knox. " And now you must call me your
Uncle David, Azalea; and you must call my
dear wife your Aunt Lorena. Remember, you
must never feel lonely any more."

Then I suddenly thought of Mother McBir-
ney waiting for me, and watching and watch-
ing the road, and praying and wondering, and
I cried out:

"Oh, my dear Mother McBirney! I can
never leave her: — never!"

" But someone else has a claim on you now,"
said my Uncle David. Carin, think of having

44 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

a right really to write that: "My Uncle
David!"

" Yes, I know, but — "

" I do not mean your Aunt Lorena and
myself," he said. " I mean that you have a
grandmother and that it will be the happiest
hour of her old age when she takes the daugh-
ter of her favorite son in her arms."

"Not a grandmother? A grandmother of
my own? "

" Indeed you have, and a very wonderful
and proud old lady she is. The grief of her
life was the waywardness of her son. She
cannot realize that he is dead. We have to
watch her lest she steal out to meet him in
secret as she did in the old days when his father
turned him from home. She used to creep
from the house to meet him and to take him
money, for she lived in the light of his hand-
some countenance. So it is your duty, Azalea,
to go to her."

" A grandmother," I said, " of my very
own ! "

It seemed wonderful — like having a mother,
only more majestic. I can't explain what I
felt.

NEW RELATIONS 45

And I can't write any more just now, darling
Carin. My aunt has kept warning me that I
must put my pen down. So I obey. Another
day you shall know the rest.

As alicays,

Azalea

CHAPTER III

OWN FOLK

" Little Windows," Mount Hebron,

October 22nd.
Car in dear: *

I was not quite so well after writing you.
Aunt Lorena says I mustn't write so much at
one time again till I am stronger. This is
just to say that Mother McBirney has been
sent for, though I can't see how she is to leave
home. Who will look after the men? Oh,
how I am needed in that little house! And
here I lie in this beautiful room, idle, of no
use to anyone. And so sleepy! I never dreamed
anyone could be so sleepy.

When I dream now, it is all about my grand-
mother. To think of an own grandmother!
In my dreams she comes creeping softly into
the room and strokes my hair. I do not believe
a word they say about her being proud. I am
sure she is gentle. At least, her dream-hand
on my head is so.

46

OWN FOLK 47

I am writing to Mary Cecily Rowantree^ and

she can send the letter on to Keefe O'Connor

— to " brother " as she always calls him. Have

you noticed that she almost never speaks his

name? That is, I suppose, because he does not

bear the one that was given him when he was

christened. What a strange story is his!

Good-bye, yellow-haired one,

Azalea
********

October 24th.
Dear old Car in:

Mother McBirney has come. I have been
alone with her. Of course she had been told
everything by Uncle David on the way over.

" Mother-heart, mother-heart," I said to her,
'' tell me what I shall do. Here we are alone,
we two, and no one is listening. Whatever you
decide on shall be done. No matter what any-
one says, WT shall do it."

" Zalie," she said in that lovely drawling
voice of hers, " I reckon the time has come for
me and you to go our separate ways."

" Mother, do you know what I have been
told? I am rich. I shall have money to spend.
All at once, in one lump, right now, I can

48 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

have the money that would have been mine all
during the years since my father died. I have
asked them, and they say that though I am not
of age, I may do what I please with that
money. So, mother-heart, you and Father
McBirney can go to the Springs, and Jim can
go to school. You can rent out the horses and
the cattle or sell them. Perhaps Annie Laurie
will add them to her stock. You can sell the
chickens and the bees, or take them to Annie
Laurie's too."

" Oh, Zalie," cried Ma, " how can you go on
talking about chickens and bees?"

" Because," said I, " sooner or later that is
what the three of you will sit up late at night
talking about. I'm trying to arrange it so that
you will not say ' no.' For I can't stand it to
have Father McBirney suffering the way he is,
and you going sad and poor and Jim not
having school. I knew all the time that I
couldn't stand it — that I'd have to do some-
thing about it. And now here, along comes
Accident — whom I shall make my goddess —
and she brings me among my own folk, and
gives me a fortune."

" And parts us, Zalie."

OWN FOLK 49

"No, Mother McBirney. I say no! You
shall go to the Springs, you shall see Father
get well. I shall visit you from time to time.
Then you will go back to your own home, per-
haps, and some day I shall build on that
lovely spot on the little bench, halfway up the
mountain-side. You remember that place with
the three great tulip trees and the spring of
cold water? I'll build me a little house there,
and all the mountain people and all the valley
people shall visit me. It will be near
you, so that every time you go to town you
will be obliged to stop and have something to
eat and to get a drink at my spring. You shall
not lose me, no, no, no."

I gave her such a hug that she gasped.
Though she is so gentle I think she always
rather liked my fierce ways.

" Will you be living in that house alone,
Zalie?" she asked me, looking just like Jim
when he teases. And though there wasn't a
thing to make me blush — not one thing — I
got to blushing and couldn't stop. I was per-
fectly furious with myself. How is it that
sensible people are sometimes so silly?

" Mother McBirney," I said at last, " is it

50 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

nice of you to peer into the future like that?
Don't you think you are prying and — and — "

She wouldn't let me finish. Anyway, I didn't
know how to finish.

" Don't you do some of that kind of prying
yourself?" she asked.

Would you have thought Ma McBirney
could have been so naughty?

You will remember, Carin, that when your
dear father and mother asked me to live with
them and be a sister to you, I refused because
I could not bring myself to leave Mother
McBirney. But then she was all sore and suf-
fering from the loss of her Molly; she had
done the one wild and lawless thing of her
life in stealing me from the terrible people who
claimed me. I had to stay with her then. But
now I am a young woman. I must make my
own way, and I must help the McBirney
family. Moreover, the people who now take
me are my kin. In going with them I do my
duty to my own family, to my grandmother;
I can make amends to her for all my father
made her suffer. Do you not see how different
it is?

I explained it all to Mother McBirney. She

OWN FOLK 51

is reconciled — very quiet and rather strange,
but reconciled. She will get happier as time
goes on. Oh, I mean to make her very happy.

It is interesting to see her and my uncle and
aunt together. My uncle and aunt are very
grand people, Carin, but they have no better
manners than little Ma McBirney. You and
I always said she had the nicest manners in the
world. They begin and end with kindness, and
gentleness and thoughtfulness, and with it all,
she is so self-respectful, as if she felt it her
duty to cherish her own soul and mind and
body because they were God's gift to her.

Did I tell you that Mrs. Babb, the moon-
shiner's mother, was over taking care of Father
McBirney and Jim? That fierce mother of
wild sons! I remember describing her that
way to myself long ago. But you know how
kind and nice she can be. She always was an
obliging neighbor, and so, for the matter of
that, were her sons. You have heard about
the time her son set Hi Kitchell's arm and
was good to Jim. That was when I was kid-
napped, and the whole countryside was search-
ing for little Azalea.

The funniest thing happened to Uncle David

52 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

and Mother McBirney when they were coming
over here together. Uncle David knew, of
course, about my going into the little cabin
and warming myself before the fire and helping
myself to soup, so he was watching out for
the place. And sure enough he came to it,
and he and Mother McBirney went in. There
were two women there, a mother and daughter,
and both were very nice looking, though one,
of course, was no longer young. They seemed
different from most of the mountaineers; not
inclined to tell much about themselves. They
showed the picture of me, and they said they
had enjoyed the things I left. They talked
about me quite a little, and were polite, though
cold and ofRsh. Uncle David had his camera
with him, and he wanted to take pictures of
them to bring to me, but they objected to that.
Wasn't that queer of them? Some day I am
going to call on them, unless indeed I leave
this part of the country forever and ever. I
suppose I may.

Aunt Lorena doesn't want me to go to Mal-
lovvbanks — that is the name of the old Knox
place — all in my homespun. She wants to
dress me out as Queen Guinevere did Enid.

OWN FOLK 53

I have asked her to wait, but she is not very
well content to do so.

" If you are presented to your grandmother
in homespun," she says, " she will remember
it to the last day of her life. Your grand-
mother is very old, Azalea, so that she is
inclined to pay too much attention to little
matters. She will say to everyone who comes
to the house: 'This is Azalea, the daughter
of my dear Jack. She came to me in home-
spun, but I have clothed her in silk — as
becomes her.' Oh, it is so easy to imagine her
saying it. Truly, she will never forget the
homespun nor let you forget it. What is worse,
she will insist on dressing you herself, and she
will probably do it out of the cedar chests in
the lumber room."

"Out of the cedar chests?" said I.

" Yes, the famous, terrible cedar chests.
They are filled with loot from all over the
world — old shawls and crepes and brocades
and laces. Never was there such an expensive
and unusable mess. Ever since David married
me she has wanted me to make over these
things — "

" And very lovely you would look in them,"

54 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

broke in my Uncle David in gentle rebuke.

" Lovely, indeed," cried Aunt Lorena. " I
would look like a romantic scarecrow. No,
David, the ladies who wore those gowns dressed
in the fashion of their day, and I mean to dress
in the fashion of mine. I warn Azalea right
now that if she doesn't let me send to Charles-
ton for fit and proper clothing for her, she'll
be wearing those stiff old things to the day of
her — marriage."

" Oh, I'd be certain to have my wedding
dress made out of the chests, I should think,"
I said, perfectly delighted with the idea.
" Hasn't grandmother saved her wedding
dress?"

" Of course she has, and her wedding che-
mise and slippers and veil and fan."

" Oh," I cried, " just let me lie still and think
about it awhile. Isn't it like a fairy tale?"

So I did. I lay still quite a while looking
at the fire, and wondering if it could be true
that I, Azalea Knox, who had believed myself
to be little more than a waif, was coming into
a home all mellow and beautiful with old cus-
toms and memories and loves — and hates, too,
I suppose. Then I seemed to feel that some-

OWN FOLK 55

thing was wrong, and looking up I saw my
new Uncle David frowning at me — distinctly
frowning.

So I said:

"Why do you frown, Uncle David?"

And he said:

" Why are you so interested in bridal
dresses? "

" Aren't all girls interested in bridal
dresses? "

" Not when they are infants like yourself,
miss."

" I am eighteen and over," I said. " If you
don't have daydreams Vvhen you are eighteen,
when will you have them?"

" True for you. Azalea," cried my aunt with
her high laugh. " Pay no attention to him.
I was just turned seventeen when we became
engaged."

" The circumstances were peculiar," said my
uncle, rather red in the face.

" They were," said my aunt. " You wanted
me, and you were afraid I might — want some-
one else."

" But we waited," said my uncle, " a long,
long time."

56 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

" Two years and three months," said my
aunt.

" Few, however, would be justified in marry-
ing so young," said my uncle. " But we were
peculiarly suited to each other. Both families
approved. You, my dear Azalea, have not
been so situated as to see much of people in
your own station of life, so it will probably
be many years before you will have any occa-
sion to ask my mother for her old white satin
wedding gown."

I said nothing at all but just smiled at the
fire. I could feel Uncle David still watching
me. At last he said :

" Why are you smiling? "

" I am happy."

" Are you still thinking of the wedding
gown? "

" Only vaguely."

"Azalea, have you any secret to tell us?"

" None."

" Could Mrs. McBirney throw any light on
that peculiar smile of yours?"

" Ask her."

But would dear old Ma go back on me?
You know she would not.

OWN FOLK 57

" Zalie is like my Jim," she drawled, " a
good deal of a tease."

I threw her a kiss. And Uncle David shook
his fist at me.

Ah, Carin, why are you not here? Why can
we not slip in bed side by side each night as
we used up at Sunset Gap? I have so many
things to tell you, and I cannot begin to make
them clear merely writing them like this.
Though I find I like to write. I have been
reading and reading for years and thinking
how hard it must be to write, and now, for the
first time, I am really trying my hand at it,
and I find it about as easy as breathing. Of
course, writing to you, who understand me and
my ways so well, makes it particularly easy.
I do not say that I would dare to write for
strangers or that I would like to do it. And
yet, I wonder, Carin, if one were to write a
book just as if one were talking to a friend,
showing all one's heart and counting on the
readers to understand and sympathize, if it
would not be a good book.

A book has to be human to be good, doesn't
it? And writing that way, frankly, even lov-
ingly, I may say, letting people feci that you

58 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

who are writing are really a friend, although
unknown, would make a book human, wouldn't
it?

I suppose there are a great many lonely folk
in the world who have not had the good fortune
to make friends, or even to find their own home,
in any true and deep sense of the word, and
that to such, a friendly book is a great boon.
It is something to take down off the shelf at
night in the quiet hours, and to read over and
over again. It helps them to forget their
troubles and even themselves, and they go to
bed comforted and warmed at the heart,
remembering that the old world is a pretty
kind and genial place after all.

If I could write, it is such a book as that
which I would choose to make. And do you
know, the last few days as I have been lying
here thinking and thinking, I've wondered if
I might not write a little. It would do such
pleasant things to my life. It would be like
planting little gardens of flowers all about me.
Haven't we a right to plant flowers if we have
a taste for them? Planting flowers and writing,
like everything else that one does, is largely
a matter of habit, don't you think so?

OWN FOLK 59

To-morrow Mother McBirney is going
home. Uncle David is going to take her. She
is to close up the house, send Jim to school, and
betake herself and Father McBirney to Bethal
Springs for the winter. Uncle David has
written dovvn to engage a cosy little furnished
cottage for them. He has given me a check
for them. I am very happy, Carin.

I told you I was going to make Accident my
goddess. I like Accident. Just turning around
the corner may bring one face to face with —
with something glorious. I feel all the time
now as if something delightful and surprising
were going to happen.

Lovingly,

Your Azalea

********

" Little Windows," Oct. 29.
Carin, we are off. The " little windows "
are all boarded up. The servants have been
driven to the station. Outside the door the
touring car is standing, silent but eager. I
swear it looks eager, and that I am horribly
afraid of it. I expect to have a chill. My
teeth chatter at this moment at the thought of

60 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

riding in that long, raging, rushing thing
around these winding mountain roads. I feel
as if this might be the last letter I shall ever
write to you. I said I loved Accident, but
that depends on how she looks. To-day I do
not like the looks of her. I cut her acquaint-
ance. If you never hear from me again, remem-
ber how I loved you.

Aunt Lorena and Uncle David are putting
the last touches to things, and I am sitting on
the porch scribbling in my notebook. From
here we can see thirty peaks and many valleys
and rivers. The rivers are silver threads in
the purple distance, winding and winding.
There is an eagle just above the house, prob-
ably come to see that we get safely away. I
wish he would teach me how to fly so that I
wouldn't have to ride in that terrible machine.

The only thing that cheers me up is the
thought that I am really going home. After
so many homeless years, or years in which I
had a home only by the kindness of others, I
am going to my own home, to my own grand-
mother, blood of my blood, the mother of my
father.

Do you suppose those who love us and are

OWN FOLK 61

dead, know what is happening to us? Is my
own little mother seeing me this day? Is she
glad I am going to the home which never
opened its doors to her? Am I loyal to her in
going? These questions are too hard for me
to answer. I only know that my uncle and
aunt would be shocked and deeply offended if
I did not go with them, and I remember that
to the last my mother loved my father.

When she lay dead that day in dear Mother
McBirney's house, they found in the leather
pocket book she carried, a little piece of dark
hair which must have been his, with her " wed-
ding lines," as Mother McBirney called them,
and a little blurred picture which was, no
doubt, of him. But her tears or the rain had
dimmed it so we could barely see it.

Your letter was brought me last night, Carin,
and was the greatest sort of a comfort. Oh, I
knew you would understand.

Aren't you taking too many studies? You
mustn't wear yourself out. Never forget that
you are going to be an artist and that you have
to consider your talent above everything else.
So be careful not to use yourself up on mathe-
matics and physics and all those things.

62 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

I am glad you are having some good times.
That young man who sent you flowers is a
Southerner, is he? From Charleston? Why
didn't you tell me his name? Perhaps I shall
be meeting him. For I am to meet people. I
mean, I am to meet them the way you do.
Aunt Lorena will give a " coming out " party
for me. It rather amuses me. Poor Azalea,
with her boots covered with red mud and her
hands scratched with briars and burned with
cooking and pricked with sewing, and her hair
tumbled every which way, Azalea who can
whistle through her fingers as well as Jim or
Hi or any of the boys, who can climb a fence
in a jifify and shin up a tree if necessary, to
stand all perfumed and proper, in a wonderful
old drawing-room, saying: "Thank you,
madam, you are very good to say so." " Thank
you, sir, indeed I am very much honored to
meet my grandmother's old friends." Can you
hear me? I wish you could in reality. Per-
haps I can get my aunt to put off the party till
Thanksgiving. If so, could you dash down
to Mallowbanks? It is not far from Charles-
ton. You could take a few extra days from
college, couldn't you?

OWN FOLK 63

The very thought of it puts new courage into
me. You will find my new address within.
Write me at once. I shall insist that Annie
Laurie come to my party also. What a reunion
that would be! To have the old friends and the
new together would be something to remember
always.

Maybe the young-man-who-sent-the-roses will
be home for Thanksgiving. Then he could
come too, and I would see if he was nice
enough to — to be allowed to send you roses.

Do you suppose Keefe could come? But he
wouldn't, would he? At least, not unless I
got an order for him to paint a portrait. And
how could I do that? But maybe 1 can insist
that he shall paint a portrait of my grand-
mother for me. My own grandmother!

There, Uncle David is cranking that terrible
machine. I must go. Carin, we who go to
die salute thee!

I will you my amber beads.
Tremblingly,

Azalea

CHAPTER IV

MADAM GRANDMOTHER

Mallowbanks, Brent County, S. C,

November first.
Poor neglected Carin:

I know it, Carin. I know I have treated you
badly. I know that you have been expecting
and wondering and scolding because I have
not written.

But when you say that I have forgotten you
because of my new friends, well — I haven't
any answer to that. Nothing pleasant ever
happens to me that I do not wish you were
with me to share it, and nothing bad ever
happens that I do not think in the midst of all
my trouble:

" I will make a story out of that to tell to
Carin and — well, Annie Laurie or any other
person whom I love."

But you first, Carin.

As you may have guessed, we got here alive.

64

MADAM GRANDMOTHER 65

I was really very much surprised. Between
shivers and shudders I enjoyed the ride tre-
mendously. We had two days and a half of it,
sleeping at night in inns where my uncle and
aunt were welcomed very warmly, and where
everybody marveled over me very much as they
did in the old days when Mother McBirney
first took me over and carried me with her
everywhere to exhibit me so lovingly and
triumphantly.

Only this time there were differences; very
great differences. I soon realized that to be
the daughter of the house of Knox was no small
matter, and though I had insisted on keeping to
my homespun, and still do think it very nice,
I was a trifle worried about it. But my riding
suit is well cut, and it fits like a dream, and
the homespun is almost as soft as camel's hair,
and the color of it, a bottle green, becomes
me very well. I was wearing the little dark
green Alpine hat you brought me from Switzer-
land, and that was becoming too.

Yet, girl-o'-my-heart, I felt frightened and
insignificant enough when, having passed by
way of many charming old towns and wide
plantations, we came at last to the long, shady

66 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

road which they told me belonged to the Knox
estate. The part we passed through was all in
fine old trees, not so near together but that the
sun could make bright carpets in between them.
Here and there, where the ground lifted, we
could see the plantations, now of course in their
autumn bareness, stretching in three directions.

I have always loved to read about princes
and princesses who have wandered, poor and
forlorn, in strange lands, and who finally return
to their royal homes and live happy ever after
amid a loving people. I think that is the nicest
sort of a story in the world, and I often have
played, when it was cold and windy in my little
loft on Tennyson Mountain, and when Jim
teased me, and all the family was looking at
something in a different way from what I was
able to do, that I was a lost princess and that
by and by I would come into my own.

But I never really thought it anything but
a silly, silly dream. I played with it as I used,
a few years before, to play with paper dolls.

Yet here I was, Carin, being swept up
to the door of my ancestral mansion. We
turned a bend in the road, and then saw the
house across a stretch of lawn. It was all drip-

MADAM GRANDMOTHER 67

ping with Virginia creeper; the leaves hung
red as flame from the hooded windows, and
bannerets of the scarlet vine fluttered from the
wide door. Did uncle tell me the house was
Georgian in its style? I do not remember. At
any rate, it is of old-rose brick and tile, as
mellow as a soft sunset. There are six hooded
windows and the beautiful door down below,
and seven window^s above; then at each end of
the main part of the building is an L, running
obliquely out into the lawn, and here, too, are
the hooded windows above, but below are gal-
leries, and they are roofed in some places and
uncovered in others, so that you can stay
under cover if you like, or right out under the
stars.

I found myself clasping my hands tight over
my heart as I looked.

" Do you like it, dear?" asked Aunt Lorena
gently.

I seized her hand.

" Oh, Aunt Lorena, did you come here a
bride? Did Uncle David bring you here?
Had you ever seen it before?"

" I had known it ever since I was a child,
but notwithstanding that, the day I entered it

68 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

and knew it for my own to live in was one of
the happiest of my life."

" All on account of the house, I suppose,"
growled Uncle David from the front seat of
the car. Aunt Lorena laughed like a bird and
said nothing.

" Oh, the years must have rolled sweetly by,
Lorena," said I under my breath.

She smiled at me beautifully, and then we
got out of the car, and there were people
running from out of the house and from around
the house to help us — kind, affectionate, cap-
able black people, happy and well placed.

They all looked at me, open-eyed, like
children, and they bowed and smiled, but all
the time I could see they were wondering.
Then Uncle David took me by the hand and
led me up the steps and turned with me and
said:

" This is Miss Azalea Knox, the daughter of
my brother John. She has come here to be the
daughter of the house and your young mistress."

In the old days — or at least in story books —
my " faithful retainers " would have cheered.
These did not cheer, but there were murmurs
of interest and pleasure, and then they began

MADAM GRANDMOTHER 69

coming up to wish me happiness with the sweet-
est manners imaginable. So I shook hands with
them all, and liked them, and felt I would
enjoy doing things for them and that I could
ask them to do things for me. All the while,
inside, deep down, there was a curious chuck-
ling going on in me. I couldn't help having
that laugh with myself.

" So the poor homespun princess really has
come to her ancestral halls," I kept thinking.
I wondered that it didn't strike Uncle David
and Aunt Lorena and that they didn't laugh.
But no, Carin, they were quite serious and
grand, and I soon saw how well their stately
ways went with that beautiful place.

I mustn't take time to describe all the place
to you, must I? But I cannot pass on without
telling you my first impression of the great hall
by which we entered. There was a high panel-
ing in carved wood, and a sweeping staircase,
with carved panels, and a fireplace, all beauti-
fully carved too. The dark, shining floor was
covered with strips of gray carpeting, and at
the doors and the great window of leaded glass
on the landing were silvery curtains with bands
of white and black. Then there was the clock

70 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

of teakwood, and a lovely statue of a Diana in
pinky-white marble, so delicate the light came
through her arm.

An unusual room, you must admit that. To
the returning princess, who has seen no
grandeur save that to be found in your beautiful
home, Carin, it was rather — well, rather over-
powering.

Mother McBirney had sent my clothes to
me, of course, and now my little bag was taken
up to my room, and I was told to follow Mary
Greenville Female Seminary Simms — Semmy
for short — the old benevolent-faced colored
woman.

We went up the wonderful stairway, I saying
nothing and breathing pretty hard, but trying
not to let anyone know it, and then along the
upper hallway to a shuttered door. It was
opened for me and I went in to what was to
be my room.

So quaint, so complete was it, Carin, that I
hardly know how to describe it to you. The
walls were papered with a design of pine leaves
on pearly white; the draperies were white
muslin and green silk; the furniture was of
white wood, upholstered in green. There were

MADAM GRANDMOTHER 71

only two pictures, both of the sea; one with
wild waves dashing over a rock in the bright
sunshine, the other a quiet, wonderful picture
of rippling miles of water the color of the
inside of a shell. The sun must have been
rising, but one did not see it — only banks of
soft cloud, with a gray veil before them.

Can you imagine it all?

Then, as each drawer was opened, or the
closets, or the armoire, sweet odors of dried
herbs came forth. Everywhere was fragrance
and peace.

" You-all trunks w^ill be comin' along by
express I reckon," said Semmy as she began to
unpack my bag. I wondered what Aunt
Lorena would wish me to say. Should I let my
black maid know that all I owned was there
before her — not enough to fill two of the
drawers in the deep bureau? Then it occurred
to me that it was not necessary to tell her any-
thing at all.

" How nicely you have put everything
away," I said to her. " Here is a little basket
that I made with my own hands. Will you let
me give it to you? "

So I got rid of Semmy and her questions, and

n AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

was left alone wondering what I should do
next. Nothing I possessed went in any way
with my grand surroundings, but I reflected
that Mother McBirney would have decided, in
such circumstances, that one could at least be
neat and clean.

So I bathed in my beautiful bathroom, and
I donned fresh clothes. It was rather chilly,
and I hardly knew what to wear. But at last
I put on the low-necked white frock Aunt
Zillah Pace made for me — every stitch hand
sewn — and the amber beads your mother gave
me, and a scarf of yellow silk that was Barbara
Summers' Christmas present to me. I had
some white slippers and silk stockings — gifts
from your dear mother, Carin. So I managed
fairly well, I thought.

Out in the corridor I met my aunt coming
to my room.

" I have told your grandmother," she
whispered. " She is terribly excited. I ought
to have waited, perhaps — to let her get
acquainted with you and then to tell her after
she became fond of you. Oh, I wish I had !
But it is too late now. Anyway, we mustn't
keep her waiting a minute. How lovely you

MADAM GRANDMOTHER 73

look, Azalea! Just as a young girl should.
Will you come with me now? Your uncle is
with his mother."

I had never seen Aunt Lorena excited before,
and I could hardly understand why she should
be so now, though I will confess that I felt
very strange myself. I had to take hold of
Aunt Lorena's arm going down that long
flight of stairs.

Then, once we were down, the old black
butler bowed us into the drawing-room, which
was glittering with old-time luster candelabra,
and at the end of the room, all in gray and
white and diamonds, with hair of pure silver,
was the littlest, proudest, stateliest lady I ever
saw or dreamed of. You cannot imagine how
small she was or how regal. She sat in a high-
backed carved chair on a dais, like a queen,
and Uncle David stood by her quite as if he
were her prime minister and wxre terribly
worried over some affair of state.

I saw him looking at me anxiously, and I
knew he was doubting my power to please this
little queenly lady. But at that very moment all
of my own fears departed and I only remem-
bered that at last here was one of my very, very

74 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

own folk, and I ran down the room and lifted
her hand in mine and kissed it. Yes, I knelt
right there on that queer little dais and held her
hand to my lips. I was going to call her
" grandmother," but she looked so regal that I
could not quite speak that familiarly, so I
called her " madam grandmother " instead,

" Madam grandmother," I cried, " I am
your own granddaughter. Please, please love
me!"

" Arise, my child," she said as if I were
indeed the long lost daughter of a queen — as
I so often had pretended to be — and she lifted
me up and looked at me through her little gold-
rimmed lorgnette.

" David," she said proudly, " she is the liv-
ing image of our dear Jack!"

'' Yes, mother," said Uncle David gently.
" I was sure you would think that, and indeed
I agree with you, and so does Lorena."

" Lorena," said madam grandmother in a
voice of command, " I confide this child to
your keeping. She must be your especial care.
You will rear her, Lorena, to be worthy of her

name."

" I am glad, mother," said Aunt Lorena,

MADAM GRANDMOTHER 75

" that you think me capable of performing
such an important and delicate task."

" Lorena, you were a Ravanel, and the
Ravanels have no need to doubt themselves.
I could place her in no better hands."

" My Aunt Lorena has already been looking
after me more kindly than I can say, madam
grandmother," I said. " I cannot tell you how
good she was to me when I was ill."

"Hah!" cried my grandmother, "I like
your voice, Azalea. Moreover, I like your
manner; and I admire your name. I wish to
hear something of your life. David and
Lorena, you have, no doubt, already heard this
story. If you wish to withdraw you may do so.
Please close the doors as you go. JVIy grand-
daughter and myself vv^ill have a conference."

Carin, would you have supposed anyone
could speak in this manner in the present day
and generation? I would never have believed
it myself if I had not heard it.

Sampson, the old butler, was summoned to
bring up a low, comfortable chair for me, and
sitting in this, holding my grandmother's little
wrinkled, jeweled hands in mine, I told her all
the story.

76 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

Once she asked me to ring to have the fire
lighted in the great fireplace, and " old James,"
as the utility man is called, came in and did it.
Otherwise we were left quite to ourselves.
Callers came, but she asked to be excused.

" I have been receiving callers all my life,"
she said to me, " but never, never before have
I sat with a granddaughter of my own — and
as true a Knox as ever drew the breath of life.
Every tone of your voice, my dear, reminds
me of your father; every look and gesture is
like him. This is the happiest day I have had
for many years."

" You do not question my identity at all,
madam grandmother," I said. " It is very
gracious of you."

" The story your Uncle David told me was
convincing, my child. But aside from that,
your face is a confirmation of the truth of your
story. But continue, please. I wish to hear
everything you have to say."

So I talked on and on, and she listened
seriously and kindly, sometimes with her head
drooping a little, other times proudly, with
her little gold-bound glasses raised. I could
see that she suffered horribly when I told of

MADAM GRANDMOTHER 11

how my sweet mother and I had struggled on,
how we had gone hungry and cold and had had
to associate with drunken, coarse, cruel people.
But I told her everything. I seemed to owe
that much to my little mother.

Then, after a long time, I finished. She
looked at me with a strange, sad, wistful air
that made me, for all her pride, think of a
child who had done wrong and who wished to
be forgiven.

" I am sorry," she said, " that you did not
know your father. Azalea. You would have
loved him. No one could help loving him.
Please, for my sake, do not hate his memory."

" No, no," I answered, " I will not hate him,
or anyone. I haven't time to hate anyone."

Just then a beautiful sound stole through
the room. I could not tell what it was or
where it came from, but grandmother smiled
at my surprise and told me that it was only
the dinner gong. So she arose and said:

" Your arm. Azalea, please," and we went
down the long drawing-room together, and
when we reached the door the old butler threw
wide the leaves of it for us, and we crossed the
great corridor and went to the dining room.

78 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

It was all glittering with silver and glass and
shining with white linen and glowing with
flowers, and there was the butler and a man to
help him, and Martha, grandmother's own
woman, to stand behind her chair.

Try to think of your own rough and ready
Azalea, sitting there amid that grandeur, acting
as if she were used to it. But it is asking too
much of you, isn't it, honey? Everyone talked
very softly, and when they laughed they
seemed to do so rather cautiously, and the
servants moved about as if it would be a ter-
rible crime to make a noise, though I could see
perfectly well by the expression of their faces,
that they took an interest in everything. Of
course we had delicious things to eat. There
was some kind of a frozen dessert that Aunt
Lorena said was made in my honor.

" We have this only on notable occasions,"
she declared.

After dinner we went back to the drawing-
room again, and my grandmother asked me to
sing. So I did, but not very well, and she
asked me to dance, and I did that, too, with
Aunt Lorena playing for me. But I don't
believe I danced very well either. Making

MADAM GRANDMOTHER 79

up a solo dance as you go along isn't easy, is it,
Carin? But at any rate, grandmother seemed
pleased, and I am sure it helped her to pass
the evening. The last hour I sat beside her,
telling her stories of Mother McBirney and
all my friends, and she kept her hand on my
arm, and now and then cried to Uncle David:

" Isn't it incredible that we have found her?
Isn't she the picture of your brother Jack?"

Finally Aunt Lorena said it was time for us
all to go to bed, and when grandmother pro-
tested, she reminded her how weary we were
from our long journey. So old Martha was
called for grandmother, and Semmy was called
for me, and we all went off to our rooms. I
had to laugh a little — at least, I think I
laughed, but maybe I cried, too — to think of
my little loft at home, and the pieces of round
tin nailed over the mouse holes. And then to
look around at this new room of mine!

The bed was soft as down, and scented with
lavender, and there was an eiderdown comfort
to snuggle under. It was such a wonderful
bed that I couldn't go to sleep for thinking
about it, but lay awake for a long time, as I
never had done in my little loft. There was

80 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

much to think over, Carin — so much. And
always I kept wondering: " Have I done
right? Is this going to help me weave my
silver web? "

I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I
heard, without hearing, a certain little soft,
stealthy sound for several seconds before I
realized that something unusual was happen-
ing. Then, when that fact really came to me,
I sat up in bed to listen.

Someone, it w^as evident, was stealing along
the hall. Then I heard the soft, creeping steps
down the stairs, and after a while a door
opened — a little door right beneath my
window.

I slipped out of bed and looked from my
window, and I could see a little white figure
gliding away from the house. It was no larger
than that of a child, but the motions it made
were not a child's, and that is how I came
to know that it was grandmother. I couldn't
think it right for her to be going out into the
garden in the middle of the night in her night
clothes, so I ran down the stairs. I found the
little door opened from a cloak room, and I
stumbled out into the darkness after her. But

MADAM GRANDMOTHER 81

it was very dark and I did not know the garden,
so in a few moments I found myself quite hope-
lessly lost amid the hedges. I was afraid some-
thing dreadful might happen if I wasted any
more time, so I got back to the house, and ran
upstairs to try to find Aunt Lorena's room.

But all of the bedroom doors in the house
have shutters to them, and these shutters were
closed, so I could not possibly tell which rooms
were occupied and which were not, and all I
could do was to run up and down, knocking at
each one and calling:

"Oh, Aunt Lorena, Uncle David, come!"

It was like a horrible nightmare. It seemed
as if more doors kept coming into existence
right there before my eyes. The place was so
dark — I had no idea where to find the electric
buttons — that if the doors had not been white
I could not have seen them at all. Truly,
Carin, it was the most frightening thing that
ever happened to me.

But I hear the dinner gong. I will send this
off, there is so much of it, and to-morrow I will
write you again.

Your own

Azalea

CHAPTER V

MALLOWBANKS
Mallowbanks. November third.

}

Carin, dear:

Where did I leave ofif? Oh, yes, where I
went running down the big dark, winding
corridors, knocking and knocking at the strange
doors!

Well, presently one of them, far away from
where I was, opened, and a voice called:

"What is it? Oh, what is it?"

" Is it you. Aunt Lorena," I cried, running
toward the voice.

" Yes, yes. Azalea. Tell me what is the

matter."

" Grandmother has gone out In the garden in
her night clothes. I tried to follow her, but
I've lost her somewhere."

" Oh, dear," sighed my aunt. " It is her old
trouble again. I suppose your coming excited
her. She has little spells of forgetfulness and

82

M ALLOWS AN KS 83

she wanders out to meet Jack, your father,
secretly, forgetting that he is dead. After his
father forbade him the house, she used to do
that — to meet him at night and take him
money and clothes — anything that she thought
would help him. I don't believe she'll come to
any harm. She never has. We'll send old
Martha for her, for it would hurt her feelings
dreadfully if we were to go and if she were
to realize that she has been wandering again.
She's very proud, you know."

And, Oh, didn't I know it, Carin! Never
have I seen so much pride in such a little
creature.

Aunt Lorena called old Martha, and the
poor black thing, with her huge nightcap on,
and a great flowered robe, and slippers that
flopped at every step, ran sleepily out into the
garden, calling:

" Ole Miss, ole Miss, where be ye? Cain't
ye answer Martha? She's wanting ye bad!
Please, ole Miss, where be ye? "

Aunt Lorena and I followed along behind,
running down a long shaded walk which the
moonlight mottled, till at last we came to a
little pool. This was like a shield of bright

84 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

steel, all shining and wonderful. There were
rustling noises all about us which suited the
place and the hour but which I did not
understand.

" What is It? " I whispered.

" The swans. We have disturbed them."

And just then, Carin, out into that glistening
pool swam a coal black swan followed by two
white ones. They didn't seem like real birds
but like some sort of a vision.

" It is just beyond the pond that mother used
to go to meet your father," said Aunt Lorena
tenderly. I loved her for speaking like that.
She was sorry for this old mother's grief, and
sympathized with the memories that haunted
her and drove her from her bed. I put my
arm right around her neck and kissed her.

'' Oh, Aunt Lorena," I said, " I think you
are very sweet."

''Hush!" she warned, and turning I saw
Martha coming back with her arm around poor
little madam grandmother. We stepped back
in the shrubbery and kept very still while they
passed. Grandmother was weeping like a hurt
child.

" Your young master wasn't there, Martha,"

We stepped back in the shrubbery and kept very still
while they passed. Grandmother was weeping like a
hurt child.

MALLOWBANKS 85

she was saying. '' He was to meet me there
to-night and I was to give him this." She held
up something in her hand that sparkled in the
moonlight. " It was my own, Martha," she
went on, " so I had a perfect right to give it
away if I wanted. Oh, what do you suppose
has happened to your young master? "

"Jes' nothin' at all, ole Miss," Martha said,
her voice sounding more like that of a wild
dove than anything else I could think of.
" He's sure all right, ole Miss. He's jes' doin'
fine. That's why he didn't need for to come
for yo' pretties. Yo' jes' take heart, ole Miss.
That Mass' Jack, he won't let no hahm come
to him."

" I pray heaven," Aunt Lorena whispered
to me when they had passed, " that good old
Martha will outlive mother, for I have no idea
how we should manage without her."

We stole softly into the house and up a little
flight of stairs, and then down the corridor to
grandmother's door. We could hear Martha
still crooning to her as if she were a fright-
ened child, and then, little by little, grand-
mother ceased weeping.

" Come," whispered Aunt Lorena, and we

86 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

stole away to my room. She saw me back into
my bed, and kissed me good night — not
warmly, the way Mother McBirney used, but
gently and kindly. I like her better for not
pretending to what she does not feel. She will
grow fonder of me if I deserve it.

" We'll say nothing about this to your Uncle
David," she cautioned me. " It makes him
wretched for days when he learns that his
mother has been * wandering.' "

" She'll not be ill as a result of this?"

"Probably not — only a little distrait and
quiet."

I was left alone again in my fragrant room,
and still I could not sleep for thinking of how
my life had changed, and how curious were
these people I had come among. I saw the
stars moving along in their courses, and light
beginning to break in the east. And then, just
to show how inconsistent I could be, I fell
asleep.

I slept till noon. Think of it — me, the
Early Riser!

Perhaps I wouldn't have awakened then if
Semmy hadn't come in with chocolate and rolls
and an omelet.

M ALLOWS AN KS 87

" Ole Miss is wanting you, Miss," she said.

So I ate quickly and dressed in my dark blue
frock with the crocheted lace collar and cuffs
and was taken to her. She was in her bedroom
still, or rather in her sitting room, for her
bedroom is a stately alcove raised two or three
feet above her sitting room. To-day she was
all in purple, with studs of amethysts in her
white lace chemisette and at the fastenings of
her long lace sleeves. It was very difficult to
imagine that this was the same little broken
creature I had heard weeping aloud the night
before, and being comforted like a baby.

" My dear," she said when I went in, " I
hear that you did not rest well last night."

" Not very well, thank you, madam grand-
mother," I said dropping her a curtsy as Aunt
Lorena had told me to do.

" Being in a new place no doubt disturbed
you," said my grandmother. " You did well to
refresh yourself with sleep this morning. At
your age, my dear, I seldom arose before noon,
but that was because of the many gayeties in
which I participated — a ball or a rout almost
every night, and gentlemen riding out in the
afternoon to call. The times are not so bril-

^

88 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

liant now, I regret to say. However, a few of
the old families remain to keep alive the ele-
gant traditions of my time, and I have called
you here, Azalea, to say that I wish you to be
presented to my friends."

I curtsied again. Her queer quaint way of
talking made me feel that nothing save a curtsy
would suit the occasion.

"Thank you, madam grandmother; I shall
be honored."

My grandmother put up her lorgnette.

"Azalea!" she said sharply.

" Yes, grandmother."

"Your manners are admirable."

" Thank you, dear grandmother. I dare say
they are — are inherited."

My grandmother smiled and traced her left
eyebrow with her jeweled fingers.

" You may sit down near me," she said. " I
want to talk to you about your coming-out
party."

So then she told me something about her
friends; who had done this and who that, and
every one she mentioned was at least sixty
years of age and some, as nearly as I could
reckon, were eighty or over. So at last I said :

MALLOWBANKS 89

" And may I also be permitted to invite
some of my own friends, dear grandmother?
Carin Carson who is now in the North at col-
lege, and Annie Laurie Pace, who lives at Lee,
and Mr. and Mrs. Rowantree of Rowantree
Hall, and their brother, Keefe O'Connor who
is at the Academy of Design in New York?
And of course the McBirneys and the Sum-
mers, and — and some others."

I couldn't help thinking how I would like
to have Haystack Thompson play at my party,
and how horrified grandmother would be if
she knew my thought and what Haystack is
like.

" Are you sure," said my grandmother,
" that these friends of yours would find con-
genial surroundings at ?viallowbanks, my dear
Azalea? There is such a thing as propriety to
be considered."

"Would it be proper for me to neglect the
friends who were faithful to me for years and
years?" I asked. " I was an orphan and poor
as a beggar, and they took me in to sit beside
their hearths. They gave me the best they had;
hospitality and love and learning. If I know
anything at all, it is owing to them."

90 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

'' My dear," said my grandmother, " you
speak poetically."

" I speak the truth."

" You have a loyal heart."

'' Yes, madam grandmother, I admit it.
When I once love, I can never forget."

" How^ do you know? You are only a child."

" I shall be like you," I declared boldly. " I
wish to be like you and never to forget! "

She looked at me sideways. Then she tilted
her delicate chin and faced me straight.

" Azalea — last night — did you know? Did
you see? "

" I saw, grandmother dear. Forgive me."

''Ah, Azalea, your father was my dearest!
They almost killed me when they came between
him and me. He was wayward, I know, but
he didn't have the same ideas of goodness and
badness that others have. I always loved him.
I love him still."

" It is beautiful of you, madam grandmother.
I hope to be just like that."

" Very well, Azalea. You shall have your
friends to your party if they will come. You
shall ask the humblest if you choose."

"Thank you, thank you, grandmother; you

MALLOWBANKS " 91

will be proud to know them. The humblest
of them are very sweet, but some, I assure you,
are not humble at all. They are accomplished
enough to win even your approval."

" No doubt they are charming, my dear
granddaughter. But you must remember that
you have now come into an important position.
Much will be expected of you. You will prob-
ably wed a Ravanel. Many of the women of
my family did. My son David did also, as
you know. It is a custom with us I may say.
Yes, a Ravanel or a Grevy."

" But, dearest grandmother, I must marry the
person I love. What will his last name have
to do with it? "

" Everything, my dear child. Kindly fetch
me yonder book."

" Yonder book," Carin, was very much done
up in an embroidered cover and was lying on
grandmother's far cabinet. I wish you could
see her cabinet of fans. Some are quite his-
toric and all are exquisite.

I brought the book and it proved to be a
genealogy of the Bryce family. (Bryce was
grandmother's maiden name.) We studied
this for at least an hour, and then grandmother

92 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

called Martha to carry it to my room that I
might have it at hand to consult whenever I
wished.

" You will see," she said, " that the Bryce
ladies have married Ravanels, Grevys or
Knoxes from time immemorial. You are a
Knox. You will marry a Bryce, a Ravanel or
a Grevy."

I tried not to laugh, but to save my life I
couldn't help it.

'' Perhaps none of them will approve of me.
Remember, madam grandmother, I am only a
homespun mountain maid."

" Ah, but we will transform you into a shin-
ing princess," cried my grandmother excitedly.
" I already have had that matter in mind."

Then she clapped her jeweled old hands
together as hard as she could, and when Martha
came running, gasping: " Yessum, ole Miss,
yessum, ole Miss," grandmother said, like a
potentate in the Arabian Nights:

" Have the chests brought."

Then I remembered what Aunt Lorena had
told me about the chests in which grandmother
kept her old treasures. So I was to see these
darling old brocades and crepes and embroid-

MALLOWBANKS 93

eries! Aunt Lorena thought it would be a
dreadful thing to have to dress in them, but I
was wild to do it. It seemed a part of all the
strange play that my life had become.

So presently tw^o of the men servants came
staggering in under the weight of a great chest,
and when they had set that down they went
back for another, and then for another yet.

I wouldn't have the chests opened till I had
looked all over the outside of them. One was
covered with carmine leather all tooled with
gilt, and it had a great clasp with cupids on it.
Another was of dark carved wood, very heavy,
and lined with sandalwood that filled the whole
room with an old, dry perfume when it was
opened. The other was a sea chest with a
sailor's name carved on it.

" ' Samuel Bings,' " said I. " What a funny
name."

My grandmother frowned.

" I see nothing funny about it," she said.
" Samuel Bings was a very distinguished and
unfortunate man."

" Oh, I should love to hear his story some
time," I said contritely.

" You shall," said my grandmother relenting,

94 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

" and when I have told it to you, you will be
proud that the name of Bings appeared among
your ancestry."

Well, then, Carin, my little squirrel, we came
to the opening of the chests. How shall I
ever describe to you what was in them? I
couldn't — not in one letter nor three.

Shawls and dolmans, and great flounced
skirts and lace petticoats and silken nubias, and
beaded fascinators, and real lace and fans and
slippers and silken stockings, and flowing
undersleeves, and old gloves and hats and
feathers, and embroidered lingerie and lace
handkerchiefs and — Oh, mercy, Carin, every-
thing a belle of long ago would wear. And a
belle of to-day throw away. But, no, I must
not be disrespectful to old lace and brocade,
nor to China crepe and Irish poplin.

I tried on the old frocks and strutted and
pranced around in them, and put on the queer,
short gloves which were as freckled with
mildew as Jim's face. Of course I don't mean
that Jim is mildewed. Only that he is
freckled.

I wore the shawls, and dropped preposterous
curtsies in the flounced skirts, and I coquetted

MALLOWBANKS 95

with my own venerable grandmother behind
the cracked old fans, and did the plumes up
in my hair.

" My dear," said my grandmother at length,
" you must have these interesting fabrics made
over for you. Some slight alteration will be
necessary I suppose, but on the whole they
become you immensely. You look completely
a Bryce in them."

Just then Aunt Lorena came in. When she
saw the litter in that room and myself in a
flowered silk seven yards around the bottom of
the skirt, and eighteen inches around the waist
— I was almost smothered by this time — she
dropped in a chair and turned white.

" At last! " she gasped.

" Yes, Lorena," said my grandmother with
great dignity. " At last I have found someone
who appreciates these rare things. They were
offered to you as the wife of my only living
son. You rejected them. You preferred to
wear inferior fabrics and passing styles. But
the styles in which these exquisite fabrics are
made up, are historic, Lorena, historic. This
however, is a point which you do not seem to
appreciate. I therefore pass them on to mv

96 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

granddaughter — the daughter of my second
son. You will see that they are adapted to her
needs, tightened perhaps — "

" No, no, dear grandmother," I cried strug-
gling with the hook of that terrible dress, that
held me as if it were made of steel, " not tight-
ened- Don't say tightened! I am suffocating!"

Aunt Lorena came to my rescue and between
us we got that band undone and I was able
to draw a long breath.

" In my day," said my little grandmother,
" girls were more delicate than they are now.
I grieve, Lorena, to discover that Azalea's foot
is far too substantial for these slippers."

She looked regretfully at some yellowed
satin slippers with tarnished sequins on them.
Aunt Lorena and I looked down at my good
sizable feet — they have done a powerful lot
of mountain climbing, as you know — and we
both laughed.

" Come," said Aunt Lorena, " we must for-
get dressmaking for the day and go for a drive.
You too, mother. Won't you come in the
motor just this once? "

" You know very well that I will not, Lorena.
My pony cart will do for me. Have young

MALLOWBANKS 97

James walk at the pony's head to-day, please.
Old James ruined my last drive by the way he
groaned with the rheumatism."

So all the finery was carted off to a big empty
room where, as Aunt Lorena explained to
grandmother, we would be able to look it
over better, and I was told to dress warmly,
and so got into the nice thick coat Mother
McBirney had made for me, and put on my
mole-skin cap, and my veil and gloves — for
Aunt Lorena is terribly fussy about having
people well wrapped when they go motoring
— and uncle and auntie and I wxnt off.

We were gone for an hour or two and saw
many beautiful old estates, but none that I
liked better than our own.

" Mother is being drawn about the garden
in the pony cart," Aunt Lorena told me. " It
is curious, but she never was a horsewoman.
Even as a girl she was rather timid with horses,
and now she is very much afraid of them. As
for an automobile, it fills her with terror. So
it seems best to let her do the thing she enjoys,
which is riding about the garden and scolding
the gardeners."

"My dear!" said Uncle David.

98 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

Aunt Lorena lifted her eyebrows.

" I'm sure I didn't mean to say anything dis-
respectful," she said. " I was only describing
things as they are."

That her description was quite right, we
were soon to see. Grandmother was still going
about the garden when we got home, and it
was plain that she had " everybody by the
ears." Young James was almost in tears, the
head gardener was sulky, the boys who helped
him were laughing, and every one was or pre-
tended to be quite frightened.

"Young James," said my aunt, "you have
kept Madam Knox out too long."

" Yessum, I know it, mum. I wanted her to
go in, mum, but she wouldn't, mum."

"Oh, mum, mum, mum!" snapped grand-
mother, quivering with fatigue. " Who ever
heard such talk? Mum, mum, mum!"

Uncle David said nothing. He got out of
the motor and gathered his little silver-headed
mother up in his arms and carried her into the
house as if she were a baby. She put her two
arms around his neck and held on tight, and I
saw him kiss her very tenderly when he put
her down and called Martha to her.

MALLOWBANKS 99

" Mum, mum," she began saying again, but
Uncle David said: "Stop th'at, mother,
please," and she did.

So, Carin, this is the life at Mallowbanks.

IVIy party is to be Thanksgiving Day. Say,
Oh, say that you can come! To have you here,
to have you see all I am so stupidly telling you
about, to get off in my own room with you
and laugh and talk as we used, would, perhaps,
make this life seem real to me. Now, I confess,
it seems like a dream.

You keep writing about that young South-
erner. You say he is leaving the North and
going home. He lives in Charleston? Is his
name Bryce or Ravanel or Grevy? If so, I've
got to marry him!

Aunt Lorena said, however, that the only
unmarried Ravanel was at least seventy and
deaf as an adder, and that she wouldn't, if she
were in my place, be so hackneyed as to marry
a Grevy. As for the Bryces, they are my very
own kin and out of the question. So you can
imagine my distress! Tut, tut, no bridegroom.
And me in long dresses with my hair up. How
long must I wait?

As long, perhaps, as my coming-out party.

100 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

But it can't be any sweeter than the birthday
party Ma McBirney gave me when we danced
till the moon came up — and after.
Carin, you must come!

Fondly,

Azalea.

CHAPTER VI

MY BALL

Mallowbanks, November thirtieth.
Bad, dear, bad Carin:

You didn't come to my party! Oh, wretched,
false friend, best and most cherished, why did
you not come? Can it be that a mere desire
to have higher marks than anyone else in school
caused you to desert me in my hour of triumph?
It was that, I know. You are trying to get
that old Phi Beta Kappa key — which you'll
not wear after you do get it. I call it intel-
lectual pride, I do indeed.

Keefe couldn't come either. He had an
order to do a portrait for some Great Lady.
So he wouldn't even think of coming. He
said he was in the Right Mood for Work, and
he expected me to tremble before those awful
words, just as you expected me to tremble
before your Phi Beta Kappa record. You two,
doing your duty with all your might and

101

102 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

leaving me alone in my frivolity! I call it
shabby of you.

Well, anyway, Annie Laurie came and Bar-
bara Summers with her. Barbara put little
Jonathan in the care of Aunt Zillah Pace, and
she kept saying that she felt perfectly all
right about him, though one could see that
she didn't. It was the first time she ever had
left him overnight, and so it was natural for
her to feel nervous. Though, as you know,
Jonathan is going to insist on being taken care
of, and if there is anything he wants he is going
to have it. He is such a dear that no one can
refuse him anything, as I know to my cost!
The treasures of mine that child has broken!

Yes, those two came, and I leave you to
imagine how happy it made me. There was
my little brown Barbara with her sweet voice
and her shy-eager eyes, all dressed so quaintly,
and being so desirous of pleasing everyone,
and yet holding to her own ideas with that
darling dignity of hers; and there was my big,
glorious Annie Laurie Pace with her red hair
and her definite ways, trying to be frivolous
with the rest of us, and looking like a pre-
occupied Diana all the time. I had some fears

MY BALL 103

that when the folk at Mallowbanks learned
that what she really was preoccupied with was
her own dairy, that they might cast her into
the outer darkness where the vast company of
people-the-Knoxes-do-not-know drag out their
miserable lives. But no, the vast fields of Annie
Laurie — they did not lose a rod in my descrip-
tion of them — the cattle on a thousand hills,
more or less, and the well trained force of
helpers appealed to their imagination. They
regarded her as a Planter — or a Plantress.
She was accepted. And she w^as accepted all
the more because she really and truly didn't
care much whether she was or not. Annie
Laurie came to Mallowbanks for the sole pur-
pose of making me happy, and she certainly
succeeded. I put her in my room, and I slept
on a lounge in the dressing room. So we con-
trived to be together, and of course, just like
the girls in the song, we let down our hair
before the fire after the ball.

But I must come to the subject of the ball.

To begin with, Mallowbanks was full of
guests who had come to stay for two nights, or
four, or seven, as the case might be. They
were kin or near-kin, or old neighbors who

104 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

were as dear as kin, and they all called each
other by their first names. All the men, or
nearly all, had military or judicial titles; and
the women were lovely and, in a way, willful
— because they had been much loved, I sup-
pose. From first to last it seemed to me like
one of my old dreams and nothing else.

My coming-out party was in several parts.

To begin with, there was the afternoon recep-
tion. Ladies, mostly, came to that, though
there were some men, too. This was preceded
by a luncheon for forty. (There were little
tables scattered all over the drawing-room, as
well as the dining room.) The next day there
was a ball. That was the culmination. And
all week there have been rides and drives and
dinners and breakfasts and teas. I have met
hundreds of people. I like them all. I love
none, save the people here in my own house,
and Annie Laurie and my little Barbara. I
met Ravanels and Grevys and Bryces, but one
and all neglected to ask my hand in marriage.
There was, indeed, only one I would think of
marrying, and. Oh, you yellow-headed little
Hun, I had not talked with him three minutes
before I knew that he was your Southerner.

MY BALL 105

" I have a great many messages for you from
your friend Miss Carson," said he to me.

" Oh," I said right out, like the simple moun-
tain person I am, " are you the — "

Then, of course, I stopped and turned a
strange and beautiful red, something, I imagine,
the color of a faded American beauty rose.

" Yes," he said smiling, " I am. At least I
hope I am. I'm not sure."

" What, please," I said, " is your name? I
know all about your noble qualities, but I do
not know your name."

" My name," he said, " is Vance Grevy."

*'Oh!" was all I could say, thinking how
this was probably the particular person madam
grandmother had picked out for me. Of
course I couldn't keep back my silly self-con-
scious grin, and he smiled in much the same
way I did.

" May I present you," I said, feeling very
"heady," the way Paprika used to on a cold
morning, " to my madam grandmother? "

" Thank you," he said, " I have just had the
honor of talking with her. You were so sur-
rounded that I waited for a moment before
venturing to come to you."

106 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

He smiled more than ever. I summoned my
courage. I think it was my courage. Perhaps
it didn't deserve so good a name.

" May I inquire what she said to you?"

" Do you really want to hear? "

" More than anything."

"And you'll not lay it up against me?" he
badgered.

" On my honor! "

" Then she said: ' My dear Mr. Grevy, you
are, I take it, the grandson of my old friend.'
She put up her lorgnette and looked me over.
'Yes, you are the living image of him! Ah,
your grandfather and I were good friends
indeed, at one time, I assure you.' ' How I
regret,' I said, ' that he had two generations the
advantage of me.' The dear little thing let me
kiss her hand. ' You have his turns of speech,
also,' she said. Then she asked: 'Have you
seen my granddaughter, the only child of my
dear Jack? ' ' I am on my way to It,' I
declared. ' Ah,' she said, ' we must see to it,
we Knoxes and Ravanels, we Bryces and
Grevys, that she makes no mistakes, must we
not? ' She looked at me again through her
lorgnette, appealing apparently to my chivalry.

MY BALL 107

' We are a solid phalanx,' said I, ' to see that
she comes to no harm.' * We understand each
other,' she said with satisfaction. ' Your fam-
ily never did need superfluous words.' "

I laughed and laughed.

" I have a friend, Mr. Rowantree," I said,
" who likes to tell me about the comedy of
manners. Isn't that what madam grand-
mother pla3^s all of the time? "

"Just! But isn't she exquisite? A survival
of a splendid old time."

" Yes. Oh, you can't think hov\^ I admire
and love her."

" Yes, I can. I can very easily think how
you do. Shall you confine yourself in your
associations. Miss Ivnox, to the Ravanels and
the Grevys? Why not cut out the Ravanels? "

" There aren't many of them left, are there? "
I asked more gravely. " And you — shall I
have many Grevy's to choose from? " '

" There's my great aunt and my m.other and
my married brother and some second cousins —
nice girls they are, too."

" Oh, that's quite a selection. Now tell me
about my Carin."

But just then, of course, we Vv^ere inter-

108 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

rupted, and the only other times I got a chance
to talk with him was when we were dancing
together. That was quite a number of times,
because I had him put down three dances for
you, and I acted as your substitute.

All joking aside, Carin, I saw as much of
him as I could because I was determined to
find out what he was like. He would have to
be so very, very fine to be worthy of you. I
can see, my dear, partly from what you say
and still more from what you do not say, that
this is a serious matter with you. So I dropped
all my nonsense and was grave with him, and
he was grave with me, and I liked him — Oh,
tremendously. He is earnest and ambitious and
full of the new time. He doesn't care any more
about family than is right and sensible, and
he's determined to be a fine and successful man
on his own account. What is more, he appre-
ciates you, Carin! He does! I wouldn't rest
till I had found out whether he did or not.
It is unnecessary to say what a gentleman I
think him; and though he is not exactly hand-
some, he has a manliness and a grace that is
even better.

Yes, my blessings are all ready for you. Just

MY BALL 109

let me know whenever I am to bestow them.

Annie Laurie has a tiny, beautiful little
diamond on a thread of gold which she wears
on the little finger of her left hand.

" Annie Laurie," I said, " that ring looks as if
it had a history. It has a kind of a we'd-better-
wait-a-while-before-we-tell-our-friends look."

''Does it, impudent one?" she laughed.
" Well, then it looks to be just what it is. Sam
gave it to me."

"Good Sam Disbrow," I said. "He'll be
a fine person to live with — not ashamed in the
wrong place nor proud at the wrong time, nor
too selfish nor too unselfish — just sensible and
reliable and honest straight through."

" He and I understand each other," said
Annie Laurie softly, " perfectly."

"Of course you do. Why shouldn't you?
Haven't you taken years and years to get
acquainted? Tell me, does he ever hear any-
thing of his adopted father, and his family? "

" Not a thing," said she. " Not one thing."

" They just ' went west.' "

" Yes."

" Have you any other news? "

Annie Laurie burst out laughing.

no AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

"Haven't I, just?"

" About whom, then? "

" Haystack Thompson. Did you know he
was courting Hi Kitchell's ' ma ' ? "

'' I did. I saw him with a collar on, and no
violin. He had combed his hair; and she wore
white cotton gloves."

''Well, we all thought it was settled. The
only thing that worried us was how Haystack
was to care for a wife when he got one. He
has always been more or less like Tommy
Tucker, singing for his supper — or rather,
playing on Betsy, his violin. But for a time
the violin had to stay in the background, which
made some of us feel rather sad. We hardly
liked to have Haystack settle down like other
folks and be domestic and regular. But we
needn't have worried."

"No?"

"No. Little Mrs. Kitchell got a new gray
Henrietta, and a gray velvet hat with a real
plume, and made herself twelve new of every-
thing, aprons included, and there was general
excitement. The ladies about town began to
give her presents and to insist that they should
all be invited to the wedding, and to ask when

MY BALL 111

it was to be. But Mrs. Kitchell didn't quite
know. ' Very soon,' she said. ' In a week or
two.' She said that for quite a while. Then
one morning, Haystack disappeared."

"Oh, Annie Laurie!"

"Yes, he did. Just disappeared. He took
Betsy the violin, and left ail his new collars
behind. Likewise his suit of blue diagonal that
he was to have been married in. That was all,
except a bunch of bittersweet berries tied with
grass, which poor little Anne Kitchell found
on her account book. Under it he had written
the word ' Good-bye.' "

" How did she take it?"

" Well, she sent for Aunt Zillah, and of
course Aunt Zillah hurried right over to her
and kept giving her dry handkerchiefs till she
got over the worst of it. I think Aunt Zillah
made the reason of his defection clear to her.
' You couldn't shut Mr. Thompson up in a
house and keep him there any more than you
could a catamount,' she told her. ' He's a
wander man and a music man. What would
he be if he were to settle down and play a
respectable part? ' Little Anne Kitchell
admitted it. ' I liked him because he was so

112 . AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

different from other folks,' she said. ' He
didn't seem to have no care nor trouble, but
I suppose if I'd married him, he would have
had.' ' Of course he would,' said Aunt Zillah.
' He would have had stepchildren, and they
might not have liked him. And you would have
wanted him to be proper and regular in his
habits, and he would have fretted like a caged
hawk.' ' I reckon it's all for the best,' said
Anne Kitchell, and dried her tears. So no
more has been heard from Haystack. He's free
again, drinking out of springs, sleeping in the
woods, playing his violin to squirrels and
children and lovers. As for Anne Kitchell, she
is wearing her fine clothes and is setting her cap
for a heavy-set man who has just come to town
and set up a feed store.' "

Oh, Carin, isn't that fun? And aren't you
glad Haystack Thompson got off? I'd hate
to have civilization trap him, w^ouldn't you?

Well, well, I started to tell you about my
ball. It was a wonderful ball. We danced in
the drawing-room under the luster candelabra,
and we danced down the long corridor with
the carved panels. We women were all shin-
ing in beautiful garments, but I haven't any

MY BALL . 113

desire to describe them to you, except that my
little grandmother wore a gown of cloth of
silver and rose point lace and all of her
diamonds; and I, to please her — and it almost
drove poor Aunt Lorena wild — chose a queer
old silk of hers striped like ribbon grass in
white and greeny-white and faded lilac and
mauve. Over it I draped the thinnest silken
lace. Then grandmother gave me a necklace
of darling little pearls, and I had white satin
slippers with little butterflies embroidered on
them in greeny-white and faded pink, and a
fan of the same colors, painted with butterfly
wings.

" I never saw a coming-out dress like that
in all my life," said Aunt Lorena.

" Lorena," said grandmother magnificently,
" the Knoxes can afiford to do as they please."

But for my afternoon reception, to please
Aunt Lorena, I wore drifting white stuff —
white everything — and carried Killarney
roses, and was just as conventional as I could
be. Aunt Lorena kept pointing to me and
saying:

" This is the way I want the child to look,"
and at the ball grandmother said to her old

114 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

friends: "Wouldn't you think she was one
of us all over again? Don't you like a young
girl to dress like that? "

Everybody agreed with Aunt Lorena, and
everybody agreed with grandmother. And I
was very happy all of the time.

No, I find I'm not going to describe the
ball.

Why not?

Oh, because it was vague, after all — just
meeting strange people and dancing with
strange people, and trying to think of the
right thing to say when people complimented
me — as, of course, they thought they had to
do — and being looked over and being told
I was a perfect Knox, and hearing the music
always, always, and feeling the dance get into
my toes, and knowing my cheeks were burning
and my eyes flaming, and wanting to put my
face down in the cool moss on the bench of
the mountain where the three tulip trees grow,
and drink and drink of my spring till I was
cooled in body and spirit.

Yes, Carin, it was like that I am not
ungrateful. I like this life; a part of me
answers to it completely. Yet, somehow, I

MY BALL 115

believe it has come too late. I feel that sooner
or later I shall go back to the mountain and
stay there. I miss the red roads and the misty
dawns and the still, still moonlights, with me
answering the whippoorwill and the owl. I
miss Ma McBirney and the little graves under
the Pride of India tree. I am just Azalea
the mountain girl after all, I am afraid, though
they keep telling me how gay I am and how
I fit into my present life, and congratulating
me because I never seem to be tired.

But I was secretly very tired when at last
the week of festivities was over. There had
been a great company of us at Thanksgiving
dinner, and we had seen and tasted all that
was most splendid in the way of Mallowbanks
ham and Mallowbanks turkey, and Mallow-
banks artichokes and mince meat, and we had
talked and laughed and sung and danced, and
bowed and scraped, and shaken hands and
kissed, and at last it was all over. Even my
darling Annie Laurie and my little Barbara
were gone. And then I went up to my own
room and closed and bolted the door.

Carin, I wept and wept. I was happy,
but I wept. For, someway, after all, this was

116 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

not my life. It was not the silver web I meant
to weave. It was something that was being
woven for me, and I was only a quite nice
little yellow spider sitting in the midst of it
and being admired without doing a single
bit of spinning.

It was not at all what I had planned for
myself. I am doing a great deal of receiving
and little or no giving, and it makes me
dissatisfied.

Of course I give some happiness to grand-
mother, and a new responsibility to Uncle
David and Aunt Lorena. But what of my
vocation? What of all the things I learned to
do with these two hands of mine? What of the
friendships I made with humble people and
needy ones? What of all the good I w^as going
to do in the world?

Carin, I am very happy. You mustn't think
anything else. But I have cried a tremendous
lot, and I'm going to cry when I feel like it.
And by and by I shall do something. It will
not be liked very well at Mallowbanks — at
least, not at first. But we have to be our true
selves, don't we? Don't we owe that to — well
I don't know just Whom or What we owe it

MY BALL 117

to. But we are made so much ourselves that
to be anything other than ourselves is to offend
what Kipling calls the God of Things as
They Are.

Dear me, am I too serious? I, who have
been making an art of gayety? I can talk
nonsense endlessly, and I rather like to do it.
It excites me. I feel like a young colt when
it gets the bit in its teeth and whips off down
the road. Then, if the person I am talking
with, feels the same way, and the two of us
dare the other to see who can run away the
hardest — as Mr. Vance Grevy does, for
example — then I enjoy myself very much
indeed. Running away is, I can see, very
pleasant for a time.

But after all, I am not of a nature to run
very far. I can always be trusted to come
home and stand beside the hitching post. It's
my way. I'm dependable old Azalea after
all, and however rattle-brained I may sound,
you can count on me to sober down at the
critical moment. I'm still, Carin, right beside
the hitching post.

The only thing I insist on is being hitched
up to my own post. And I don't believe

118 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

Mallowbanks is it. It's a carved, historic,
marvelous post. But is it mine? Well, I'll not
think any more just now.

Father and Mother McBirney write con-
tented letters from Bethal Springs. People
have been very nice to them and they are not
lonely. Father is doing well and feels some
loosening up of his "j'ints." Mother is sewing
for somebody's baby. Trust her to find some-
one who needs her. If she was set down
in a desert you'd probably find her nursing
a sick scorpion. I'm going up to see them
soon.

Jim is studying his head off at Rutherford
Academy and has started a Young Men's
Christian Association there. Dear Jim! Who
would have thought he could have turned so
good? Jim who used to put little green snakes
in my closet!

Carin, when I see you, if I ever do, I will
tell you more about the ball. It was simply
grand.

But don't you just wish we were riding up
old Mount Tennyson side by side, with the
crickets singing in the grass, and the saddles
going creak-creak?

MY BALL 119

Carin, I believe I'm going to cry again.

Good-bye,

Azalea

P. S. There, I told you! See that blob?
That was the first tear. Keefe O'Connor
writes me stately letters. He says he is glad
I have come into friends and fortune. What
does he mean by that? Is he going to drop
me? Carin, he is. He's that kind of a horrid
person who can't forgive one for prosperity.
They'll stand by you in adversity but not in
prosperity. I'd just as soon be cut for one as
the other, every bit, wouldn't you?

A. McB. No, I mean A. K.

CHAPTER VII

GETTING SETTLED

Mallowbanks, December 10th.
Carin, my love:

I hear you are to go home for Christmas
and that all of your family will be together
at the Shoals. I wish I could be with you,
but I must be here, of course, and I suppose
that if I were to be with you, I should be
longing to be at Mallowbanks. That isn't
because I am discontented, but only that there
are so many beautiful places in the world
where I would like to be, that I find it diffi-
cult to choose.

I often think what a lucky thing it is that
a person is born in a certain spot and is under
the impression that she has to stay there. If
we were allowed to flutter around over the
earth before we were born, trying to decide
whom we would have for parents and where
we would live, what a state of indecision we
should be in!

120

GETTING SETTLED 121

But here I am, with my own grandmother,
in the home of my ancestors, making Christmas
presents, and having — Oh, astonishing fact! — •
all the money I want to spend on them. But
I'm not buying things. I mean I'm not buying
already-done things to any great extent. I am
making them. I want my loved ones to realize
that it is still love that I am sending them,
and not just a sign and token of my prosperity.

There are all the Carsons and all the
McBirneys and all the Summerses and all the
Kitchells and all the Paces and all the Rowan-
trees, to make things for. Of course I count
Keefe in with the Rowantrees, though I'm not
sure he would like to have me.

Speaking of Keefe, I wrote him a letter and
told him what I thought of him.

" Keefe," I wrote, " you are haughty. How
have I come to fall in your esteem? Why
am I^uddenly ' Miss Knox ' instead of Azalea.
Do you think I ought to suffer a steady average
of trouble, and because I have found my people
and my fortune, are you going to make me
miserable by turning against me? What harm
does it do the world if I am happy? "

He wrote back at once, of course. If he

122 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

hadn't, I never should have written to him
again. Never.

He said he had no idea he had the pov^er
to make me unhappy.

I wrote back and asked him since when
had he stopped telling the truth. And I said
I could see he was looking around for ways
of discontinuing our friendship, and that at
first I had been rather stupid and hadn't seen
what he was trying to do. But now I under-
stood, and naturally, I would protest no more.

Then I got a letter from him which — well,
which changed everything. He said he had
not been sure but that I meant to enter upon
a new life altogether, and if I had, he did not
mean to stand in the way. He said we had
been thrown together by accident and that he
had forced his acquaintance upon you and me,
and that we had been endlessly kind to him,
but he did not mean to take advantage of that
kindness, but that if I wished to continue our
friendship upon the old basis that it would
make all the difference in the world to him;
that he had had no heart for work or life
since the idea had come to him that he ought
to let our friendship go in justice to me.

GETTING SETTLED 123

Well, of course I had guessed from the
first that all the trouble came from some
absurd idea like that!

So I wrote him that my friendships did not
depend on the state of the money market. But
I didn't say, Carin, that I would rather talk
with him than anyone I ever met (except you,
sister of my heart). Perhaps he will never
know that. He said he would love to come
down and see me, but that, to be quite frank,
he couldn't afford it just now.

That reminded me of an old idea of mine.
So that night I said to grandmother:

" Don't you think, madam grandmother, that
you ought to have a portrait painted of your-
self as you are now? "

" I? " cried my grandmother. " At my age!
Why, my dear, I am hideous! A wrinkled,
Vv'hite-headed, shriveled old woman! What do
I want of a portrait? "

Then she arose and said as she often does:

*' Your arm, Azalea, if you please."

So I gave her my arm, guessing that she
was going once more to show me the portraits
of herself in the paneled hall. And sure
enough she did.

124 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

" This," she said, stopping before the first
one, " was by the greatest portrait painter in the
South. At the time he painted me I was
eighteen and already engaged to your father —
your grandfather, I mean. I should not like
to have you repeat it, but the painter fell
desperately in love with me, my dear — des-
perately. Painters always fall in love with
one, I fancy. That is why the picture has a
slightly unfinished appearance. He left before
he had quite completed it."

" Poor man," said L

" Ah, I dare say he recovered. These loves
that are founded on mere admiration amount
to but little. We will proceed, if you please."

I led her on to the next portrait of herself.

'' This," she said, quite as if she had not
told me the same things half a dozen times
before, '' was done by an English artist just
after my Jack was born. I wanted him to
paint it with my little David sitting at my
feet and my Jack in my arms, but he was not
in favor of it. He said he preferred to paint
me by myself. For one thing, he considered
me too small to paint with such fine large sons.
He said it made me look ridiculous. But I

GETTING SETTLED 125

truly think, Azalea, that he did not regard me
as motherly enough. I know I was and am a
vain woman. But my vanity, my dear, is only
skin deep — only skin deep. It is a manner,
nothing more. In my time it was fashionable
for girls in my class to act as if they were
self-indulged and vain. But in reality — " she
paused, and stood out before me, and I saw
there were tears in her eyes, and her face
grew tender and quiet — "in reality, my
dear granddaughter, my motherhood was more
to me than anything else."

She drooped her head down among the laces
on her gown, and I heard her say under her
breath :

" I have almost died of it! ''

I put my arm around her and drew her
close to me — such a tiny creature as she is!

" Little madam grandmother," I v/hispered,
" come back to the fire, and I will make some
tea. Then perhaps you will tell me a story.
I love your stories very, very much."

She straightened up again, calling on her
courage and her pride.

" But there is one more portrait which I
wish to show you, my dear. It was done by

126 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

a celebrated South American when I was just
turned forty — my autumnal picture, I call it.
Here I am, in my spring, in my summer, in
my autumn."

She smiled up at me suddenly.

" And now, I suppose, you wish me to round
out my year, and have my winter picture
painted? Well, I can provide the snow." She
touched her silver hair with her wrinkled hand.

" Dear grandmother," I said right out from
the heart, "you are quite right. It needs the
beautiful winter picture to complete the set."

We went back to the fire then and she sat
thinking while I made the tea. At last she
spoke.

•' Do you chance to know anyone who is
particularly well adapted to painting such a
portrait, Azalea? For, mind you, it will no
longer be the picture of a beautiful woman;
it will be what is far harder to paint, the
record of a character. For every wrinkle tells
its story, if only one is wise enough to read,
and though my eyes are old, they still have
their revelations to make, my dear. Who looks
in them can read the book of experience
there."

GETTING SETTLED 127

" I think I know such an artist, ma'am," I
said. " He has painted many portraits recently
and has had much praise for them. His name
is Keefe O'Connor."

" Keefe O'Connor," she said musingly.
" Do you know him personally, Azalea? But
I think I have heard you say so."

" He is the brother of my dear Mary Cecily
Rowantree," I said.

" Oh, yes, the Rowantrees of Rowantree
Hall!"

She never forgets that the Rowantrees are
of Rowantree Hall. You and I love the ram-
shackle old place so that we forget what a
grand name it has. Grandmother, I suppose,
thinks of it as a magnificent ancestral estate.
What would she say if she could see that the
gallery, instead of being supported by pillars,
is held up by barked chestnut logs, and that
there never has been a second coat of paint on
the place. Ugh, how the wind can blow
through those unfinished rooms! I sometimes
think it is the most uncomfortable place I ever
"vv^as in. A little mountain cabin is twenty times
as w^arm and cosy in the winter time.

I would have liked to have told grandmother

128 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

all this, but I knew it would be fatal ; that if I
did, she would just set the Rowantrees down
as people I ought not to know, so I said noth-
ing. By and by she remarked :

" Have you any idea of the prices of your
friend's portraits? "

Again I knew that I must mention a good
price to make her respect him, so I said:

" I think he would paint your portrait,
grandmother, for a thousand dollars. And we
could entertain him, I suppose? That would
make it so much more agreeable, wouldn't it? "

" Oh, we would entertain him, certainly,"
said grandmother. " We have a room built
especially for studio purposes. I believe you
never have seen it. It is in the west wing, and
faces north. There is a bedroom attached. It
always has been the custom of the Knoxes
to have their portraits painted in the house and
by someone wnth whom they were in daily

r

association. Such intercourse assists in the
understanding so necessary to the production
of a good likeness."

So I asked her if I had her permission to
write to Keefe, and she said yes. I have
written him.

GETTING SETTLED 129

No more for the present, Carln.

By the way, was I rather down-in-the-mouth
in my last letter? Please forget about it. I
suppose it was only a spell of homesickness.
Seeing so many strangers and being expected
to like them all, and to act as if I always
had known them, rather upset me.

But as I said, no more at present.

I do wish you could see the room I call my
Christmas room. It used to be a sort of morn-
ing room, but no one sits in it any more, so I
have a work table in there, and my sewing
machine and embroidery frame and my pyrog-
raphy outfit, and my photographic stufi, and I
am working early and late. Of course I inter-
rupt myself to do whatever Aunt Lorena or
grandmother w^ish me to. And people call,
and I return calls, and there are little parties.
But I like best to be working. Outside the
window are honey locust trees, and they are
very lovely even when stripped of their leaves.
In the distance, on a hill, is a group of dark
hemlock, and now that the sky is gray, they
look particularly solemn. I have a fireplace
in my Christmas room, and young James keeps
it so that I need never be without a blazing

130 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

hearth. My wood box is simply heaped. There
are apples on my table, and a funny old writ-
ing desk stands in the corner. It is a terribly
messed up room, and I love it. Not that I'm
really disorderly. You wouldn't say I w^as dis-
orderly, would you, Carin? Come, nowM No,
I believe I like it because I have made it
myself. I have in it w^hat I can use. I am
living in it. In the other rooms I only look
on; and that, emphatically, is not living.
No more for the present! I mean it!

Azalea

*A A A A A .'V. -"V-

"9^ vft 'SfZ Vft TfC Tfe "^TT

Glidden Siding, December 24th.

Merry, merry Christmas, dear Carin. Dear
old friend, such a merry Christmas to you!

I am sitting here in the station, having come
from Bethal Springs on the queerest little train
ever you saw, and I am waiting for the train
that is to take me home. It is cold, and I
think it is going to rain. Seeing that I do not
expect to reach home till after dark, this
sounds a bit dismal. Semmy is with me. I
wrote you about Greenville Female Seminary
Simms, didn't I? I wanted to travel alone,

GETTING SETTLED 131

of course, but neither Aunt Lorena nor grand-
mother would hear of it.

I have just asked Semmy where she got her
name, and she tells me that her mother was a
" pore misfortunate so't of a woman who nevah
did git on in de worl' nohow. An' jes' befo'
Ah was bo'n, she went fo' to wuk in de Green-
ville Female Sem'nary. An' theah dey was
dat good to heh, dat she neveh did see! Yas-
sum, dey jes' cheered heh along and heartened
heh up, an' nussed heh, and when de baby
come — that was me — dey gave heh a whole
set of clo's. An' ma she jes' had a change of
heart. Yassum. She jes' made up heh mind
dat she wa'n't goin' to be downcas' no moah.
She might 'a' been misfortunate, but dat didn't
keep de worl' f'om havin' any numbah o'
good, kind folk in it. No'um. So she named
heh baby fo' the Sem'nary, she did, sho'
'nough, and she was glad of it to de las' day
of heh life. And Ah was glad of it too.
Greenville Female Sem'nary Simms shore am
a fine name."

********
Well, Fve been down to see Father and

132 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

Mother McBirney. I couldn't let Christmas
go by without visiting them, could I, Carin?
I went down on the twentieth, and had three
whole days with them, and a Christmas cele-
bration of the happiest sort

The two dears were down to meet me at
the train, and they took me up to their little
cottage, which is in the pine woods, with a
very pleasant vista which shows them the river
and the river road, and though they are far
enough from the road to be quiet, they can
see the people coming and going. Mother
wheels Father to the springs twice every day,
and that gives them little excursions and helps
to pass the time. Father McBirney says the
waters are benefiting him, so that he has
hardly any pain at all now. I can see for
myself that the swelling is going down in his
joints. The only thing is he can not walk
steadily yet, and then only a short distance.

Oh, Carin, maybe it wasn't fun to go to
them with a big trunkful of things they
needed! I had a suit for Father McBirney,
and a suit for Jim, and a fine Scotch wool
dress for dear Mother, and a knitted jacket for
her for common, and a fine soft black coat for

GETTING SETTLED 133

best, and gloves and stockings and warm under-
wear, and pretty curtains for the windows,
and a turkey which Aunt Lorena sent, and a
barrel of flour and one of apples from Uncle
David, and some foot warmers and a coffee
percolator from grandmother, and various
small things too numerous to mention from
all of us.

Then along in the afternoon of the day that
I got there, Jim came over from Rutherford
College, and so we four were all together
again. Yes, Carin dear, there we sat in the
little strange room and looked at each other,
and thought of all we had gone through
together, and how we loved each other, and
yet —

And yet, we knew, each and every one of
us, that my path and theirs had begun to part.
Yes, we knew it. They felt a little differently
toward me, and I felt a little differently toward
them. But that didn't keep me from loving
my McBirneys.

Jim had a thousand things to tell me. He
has been studying terribly hard, and he has
made some good friends, and is full of noble,
loving ideas. He wants me to be a missionary

134 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

to foreign lands, and I'm afraid I hurt Mother
McBirney's feelings a little when I laughed
at him.

" Do I look like a missionary, Jim? " I asked
him. But he insisted on being serious.

" If you have the heart of a missionary,"
he said, " that will be all that is necessary.
Your looks don't matter a particle, Zalie."

The way he said it, you would have thought
I was something frightful to look at, but that
it might be lived down.

" I want very much to help my neighbors
along," I said, " and to be helped by them, I
hope, but to go to a foreign country and set
up my ideas against theirs doesn't appeal to me
personally. You'll have to excuse me, Jim."

After a little while he got off his religious
themes and w^as just good old jolly Jim, and
then we had a fine time. For I confess that I
felt a little strange with him when he talked
religion. We made candy together — nut
candy — and we popped corn, and got the
supper, and played chess, and had prayers and
went to bed. And the next two days were like
unto this day.

Only, of course, we had our Christmas feast.

GETTING SETTLED 135

They insisted on cooking the turkey and all
the other good things while I was there, so
that took a good deal of work, as you may
imagine. But it was great fun, too. The
little cottage reeked with delicious odors, and
it was charming to see with its new curtains
and the walls all trimmed with bittersweet
and holly, and the pine knots burning in the
fireplace.

Then, this morning, Semmy and I left.

" Don't forget us, Zalie, don't forget us,"
dear Ma McBirney said when I kissed her
good-bye.

" Never while life lasts, dear," I told her.
" Never while I have any brain to remember
with."

" I'm grateful to you, Zalie," Pa told me,
shaking my hand till it ached. " You've given
me comfort and peace, girl, and there ain't a
day or a night I don't thank you."

" Pa," said I, " it's hard getting even with
you and Ma, but I'm going to do it if I can."

Jim took me down to the station and told
me he hoped to be a credit to me, and that he
never forgot that he owed his education to
me, and he hoped I wouldn't become worldly.

136 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

"Jim, you old silly," I said to him, "I'm
just as worldly as I can be. I simply love
the old world."

" That, Zalie, is not what I mean, and you
know it."

" Don't lecture me, Jim," I warned him,
" or it will make me more and more frivolous.
Just leave me alone and I'll work out my own
salvation."

But he said he would pray for me. He
looked so dignified that I didn't dare remind
him of those little green snakes he used to put
in my closet. There's no doubt about it; Jim
is getting ministerial already. Growing up is
a queer thing, isn't it, Carin? Little freckled
Jim trying to make a foreign missionary
out of me!

To-morrow we shall have a great celebra-
tion at Mallowbanks. There are to be some
" kin " present, of course, and we are to have
a tree and a great dinner and in the evening a
sing around the fire. I am to sing for them,
alone, at grandmother's request, and I have
been rehearsing. I wish I had a voice like
Annie Laurie, rich and full like a robin, or a
thrush-like voice such as your mother has. I

GETTING SETTLED 137

don't think much of my voice, and I wish
they wouldn't ask me to sing. But I'll do
my best, and I have some lovely songs. Aunt
Lorena plays my accompaniments.

There, I hear the train coming!

How good it will be to get out of this
stufify little station. The light is so dim I can
hardly see. But why should I fret? In two
hours I shall be in Mallowbanks, my own
home. My own! And I know now, Carin,
that it will be a pretty fine thing to go up to
my own room and feel that I possess it, and
to sit at supper with my own people. Yes,
Carin, I realize it more to-night than ever
before.

And, dear me, I shan't get in bed till after
midnight, I know, with so many Christmas
presents to do up and label and all. I'm tying
everything with corn-colored ribbon and it
looks very pretty. The little presentation cards
have daffodils on them. Don't you like dainty
things like that?

" It is all very silly," said Preacher Jim to
me. " This money should have gone to the
poor."

" Jim," said I, " it is going to the poor. For

138 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

everybody in the world is poor. Everybody
needs help. Some need money, but more need
love, and all this silliness is just a girl's way
of showing love."

" Humph! " said Jim.

Isn't he funny, Carin? Who would have
dreamed he would be so solemn?

I do hope you'll like what I've sent you;
and I'm wild to get home and find your
package for me.

And Oh, Oh, if there isn't one, what an
Indignant Person I shall be! But there will
be, for when have you or your darling parents
forgotten me?

A thousand Christmas greetings to you all.
There is no joy I do not wish you. Salute your
hearthstone for me.

Lovingly,

Azalea

CHAPTER VIII

THE PORTRAIT

Mallowbanks, January fifth.
Carin, my own one:

Mallowbanks is entertaining an artist — a
painter of portraits. His name is Keefe
O'Connor; his residence is New York. He
was wired for imperatively by Madam Knox
who offered him more for the painting of her
portrait than he had previously received for
any such commission. Telegrams were
exchanged. The artist, it appeared, was much
engaged. Madam Knox wished more than
ever to secure him. She increased her offer.
He came — he is here in "the artist's suite."
Madam Knox sits to him in gray velvet and
pearls. Her hair is as white as the drifted
snow; her eyebrows are dark and pointed, her
little mouth looks secret and proud, her aristo-
cratic nose is a straight line, her old, beautiful
eyes are full of vanity and wisdom, sternness

139

140 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

and kindness, memories and hopes. She is
very wrinkled and very beautiful. The
portrait painter appears to be in raptures,
and he works early and late and is growing
hollow-eyed. My own conviction is that he
does not eat enough nor sleep very well.
Semmy seems to think he has a secret sorrow.

"Miss Zalie," said she to me — she learned
to call me Zalie from the McBirneys — "that
theah painter man has somethin' gnawin' him,
suah."

The painter man avoids me. When I come
near, he goes — as soon as politeness permits.
I retire to my room and read his assurances
of friendship ; I remember my own, and wonder
if my imagination is not running away with
me. But no — he avoids me. The other day,
however, we were left together at the breakfast
table and conversation became absolutely neces-
sary. What he said was:

" How changed you are, Miss Azalea."

" And you don't like the change, Mr. —
Keefe?"

" My liking or disliking it has nothing to do
with the case," he answered gloomily. " I
repeat, you are changed."

THE PORTRAIT 141

" Yes," I admitted. " I have changed a
number of times in the course of my life, but
so, I suppose, have others."

" Yes."

" Should you say I had changed for the
worse or the better? "

" It is not a question of better or worse.
You wrote me that you were the same old
Azalea, but I do not find you so. Why, how
meek you used to be! "

"Meek! I never was! I wouldn't be!
Meek!"

'' When I think of you teaching those
mountain children so lovingly, going around
in your little pink sunbonnet, chatting by the
hour with Mrs. Medicine Bottle — what was
her name? — and look at you as you are now,
and hear you talk as you do now — "

" Oh, very well," I said. " I will withdraw
my presence and my voice."

So I did. I ran up to my room, and I found
that pink gingham I used to wear up at Sunset
Gap, and the funny little sunbonnet you used
to think too becoming for a school-teacher.
I put on the pink dress, though it was halfway
up to my knees; I let my hair down my back

142 AZALEA'S SILVEPv WEB

in braids, and pulled the sunbonnet over it.
Then I waited till I knew grandmother was
sitting for her painter and I got Semmy to
go down and knock on the door and call Mr.
Painter out for a minute.

In that minute I ran in, kissed madam
grandmother and bribed her to get behind a
screen, and when our portrait painter returned,
I was on the dais looking as demure as a kitten.

He came in looking at a letter Semmy had
given him, and said:

" Will you pardon me, ma'am, for one
moment? " He glanced through his letter.
Then he bowed, and took up his brushes again.
That was when he saw me. He gave a sort
of a gasp and broke into the good old, beauti-
ful smile we used to see on him up at Sunset
Gap.

" Azalea! " he cried.

Then he frowned.

" I do not like to paint a person In mas-
querade," he said.

" But this," I said, " Is a return to type."

He still frowned.

''Perhaps you don't like the type?"

He did not answer.

THE PORTRAIT 143

" Are we keeping Madam Knox waiting? "
he asked.

I dropped a curtsy and found grandmother
behind the screen. She too, was looking not
particularly well pleased.

I kissed her again and helped her up to
her chair.

" Grandmother," I explained, " was not a
party to the deception which has moved you to
such violent rage, Mr. O'Connor. She was
taken by storm; was overcome by force of
arms and a superior enemy. I withdraw. I
never did see why anybody wanted to go to
the Arctic regions."

I curtsied again — twice — once to grand-
mother and once to him. They both looked
sulky. I got into my riding habit, called for
Sally McLean, the darling little mare they
let me use, and went oflf for the rest of the
morning. At noon I found myself at the
house of a Ravanel — Delight Ravanel. She
is a spinster, quite wrinkled and rather
depressed, but she got her Christian name
when she gave promise, I suppose, of other
things. She asked me to stay to luncheon. I
did, and found her a dear. She told me stories

144 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

about who married whom and why. She
proved to me that I was some sort of a cousin
of hers. It was the middle of the afternoon
before I started for home.

A rain had set in and the roads were very
muddy, so Sally McLean had a bad time of
it. She is such a dainty thing that mud makes
her miserable. Besides, she was shivering with
cold and nervousness, though I can't quite see
what made her nervous. But Sally has her
moods, like the rest of us. I made up my
mind, however, that Paprika was the last horse
that was ever going to throw me, and so I
gentled poor Sally, and made my way along
the road in the best spirit I could command.
I fell to thinking about little Paprika, and
Jim's Mustard, and how we used to scamper
down the long mountain road to school, and
about the times when you and Annie Laurie
and I used to race down the valley; and then
I thought over the excursion Haystack Thomp-
son and Miss Pace and Keefe and you and
I made with Paralee Panther away over the
nag road to the Panther's, and how we dug
them out of their cave, so to speak. I hear
from Paralee quite often, by the way. She

THE PORTRAIT 145

is teaching now in the Industrial School. Yes,
she is really a teacher, just as she said she
would be. Of course that is owing to the
start you gave her, Carin; but I'm very proud
to think how she has got on. She has been
independent of all help for two years at least,
hasn't she? Perhaps she has written you about
her teacher's position, but I mention it, think-
ing she might not have ventured to write. She
always stood in some awe of you, you were so
beautiful and so far removed from her.

She reminds me, someway, of those people
I did not meet in the little cabin that lay
between Mount Tennyson and Mount Hebron
— the cabin, I mean, where I went in and
helped myself to soup and firewood, and
where I left the cake and sugar and things
in exchange. I told you Mother McBirney
met them afterward and learned their name.
Wixon, it was, by the way. Well, just for
fun, I sent them some Christmas presents —
nothing really sensible and necessary, but
something perfectly luxurious — a talking
machine with a lot of records of various kinds.
Also a year's subscription to a good magazine
which has many illustrations. I thought these

146 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

things might help them to become alive. Oh, it
certainly is glorious to have money!

But I am still out in the rain on Sally
McLean's back, in a bad fit of homesickness,
am I not? These homesick spells do not come
as often as they did and they are not as bad
as they were, but still I have them, and while
they last I am miserable enough. I could feel
my tears trickling down my cold nose, but I
was having such work to keep Sally on her
feet that I couldn't wipe them away. I sup-
pose we made a pathetic pair, struggling along
in the sodden afternoon in that friendless, for-
saken way. (I'm not sure but Sally was
crying too. I think I heard her sniffle.)

Then, just as we were in the worst of our
dumps, who should appear on the landscape
but "a solitary horseman"! He was riding
Wellington, a tall, elegant looking horse
belonging to Uncle David, and he himself —
of course it was Keefe — looked tall and
elegant, too, though he had on a raincoat and
a little cap which fitted close to his head. He
didn't seem to mind the rain, but rode with
his face turned up to it as if he liked it. When
he saw me he stopped riding that way and

THE PORTRAIT 147

tried to look as commonplace as he could.

" How do you do?" he said as if we were
not very well acquainted neighbors meeting by
chance on the road.

" Very well, thank you, Rain-in-the-Face."

"You are angry with me! You have been
away all day because you were angry with me."

" I fled, Rain-in-the-Face, from the Arctic
chilliness of Mallowbanks. I have in my time
lived among strangers, I have danced and
sung to stupid audiences, I have been hungry
and wet through with the rain, I have slept
on mouldy straw in a wretched tent, but never
was I so chilled as to-day."

"Azalea!"

He seemed shocked.

" Do you mean," I asked him, angry, Carin,
for one of the few times in my life, " that I
ought not to mention that I was once a poor
little waif, a show girl, a sad-hearted dancer?
Yes, I was an ill-cared for, shamed little Infant
Phenomenon, and I don't care who knows it.
And then I was poor Ma McBirney's beloved
child, and I took the place to her of her little
dead daughter; that warmed and saved me
and taught me love and faith, and I don't

148 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

care who knows that, either. Then I was
Carin Carson's friend, and we worked and
learned together, and you saw us, and you
liked me as I was then. Now I'm Azalea
Knox of Mallowbanks, with such relatives
and acquaintances as Fate has given me, and
I'm grateful and proud of that, too. I take
all as it comes, Rain-in-the-Face, and I cannot
for the life of me understand what you are
sulking about."

" Am I sulking? I am unhappy. How
could you change so? You used not to talk
as you do now, nor dress as you do now. You
asked me to forgive you your fortune and
your place in the world, and I liked it and
laughed at it and — and forgave it. Though
it was hard. But still I didn't want to come
down here. I fought against it. I had too
dear a memory of you. Azalea, to want to
come down here in any other way than as
your lover, and I knew it would never be fair
to come that way — that your relatives would
object. So I found one excuse after another
for not coming, but your grandmother over-
persuaded me. And my heart out-argued me,
too. I had to come. I thought: 'All the

THE PORTRAIT 149

world may change, but she never will. She
will be the same.' But you aren't — you
aren't!"

"Are you?" I retorted. "Do you imagine
for a moment, Rain-in-the-Face, that after
three years in New York City, making your
way among artists and other clever, charming
people, that you are the same boy who went
singing over Sunset Gap? You are not, at all.
Now you are not afraid to be rude or disagree-
able or masterful, but then you would not have
been one of those things. You were too kind."

"So you think me unkind?"

" Horribly."

" I am sorry."

" But I'm sorrier."

" What can I do to make you change your
mind?"

" Reform."

" If I stay here where you are, I shall say
something to be regretted."

" Who will regret it? "

" I. Your uncle and aunt, above all, your
grandmother, will look on me as an adventurer.
They will even accuse you of — "

"Of what?"

150 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

I could see him turn scarlet.

" I can't say it."

" You must."

" Of having asked me down here knowing
that — that I was fond of you."

"Well, what of that? I'm not ashamed of
that. I don't believe that girls have to sit
around without making any effort to get what
they want in life."

Carin, you are horrified, aren't you?
Darlin', it just slipped out. But it was
the truth.

"Do you mean — " he cried, putting his
horse up beside Sally McLean. But I told
you Sally was in a mood. She didn't like
that way of doing things. Perhaps she thought
he meant to brush me off of her, or maybe
she imagined that it was a race. I can't say,
because Sally and I do not understand each
other very well yet. But at any rate, she was
off down the road, mud or no mud, and I
did not even try to hold her in.

I could hear Keefe thundering along behind
me, crying:

" Can't you hold her? Throw yourself off."

But not I. I let her go as fast as she wished.

THE PORTRAIT 151

At least, until I got near home and on the
macadam, and then I gently drew her in. I
didn't know but she might be beyond all reason
by that time, but she wasn't, and I felt terribly
ashamed of having let uncle's fine mare get in
such a fume.

" I do hope and pray, Sally," I said, " that
I haven't ruined your disposition with my
wretched temper."

Just then it came over me that there
was nothing at all the matter with Sally's
disposition. The trouble was all with me. I
had been in a trembling rage all day and the
sensitive creature had taken it from me. I
was disgusted with myself.

" Little Sally," I whispered in her ear as I
dropped ofif her at the house door, " I'll never,
never act like that again."

She has wonderful eyes. I wish I had eyes
like that creature. She looked at me straight
and we kissed and made up. That is to say,
I made the boy hold her till I got her some
sugar, and I told him to rub her down well
and blanket her and feed her very lightly.

" She got a little excited," I said. It was
young James, and he looked at me curiously.

152 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

I wondered if he, too, saw that I was the
excited one.

" Yassum," he said. " No-um, Yassum."

I thought it covered the ground.

I saw Keefe swinging around the drive just
then, and I ran straight up to my room.

Oh, Carin, how safe and sweet it seemed
there. I called Semmy and had her draw
my bath and help me ofi with my wet things,
and I told her to lay out my new flame-colored
silk. It is gorgeous in hue but modest in make.
*' For dull nights," said Aunt Lorena when she
gave it to me. " A country house, my dear,
can be particularly gloomy. I trust you to
brighten this one up at such times. Perhaps
you can do it successfully without the aid of
a flame-colored gown, but in case — " Well,
I put on the flame-colored dress; likewise the
slippers that went with it. No jewels. I have
only my little pearls, and the gold beads and
the amber ones. The dress would have put
any of those out. I did my hair low. I took
off my one ring. The dress, I thought, could
have the whole road to itself.

I was one minute late to dinner, and grand-
mother was watching for me.

THE PORTRAIT 153

^'Madam grandmother," I said, " will you
do me the honor?" I gave her my arm, and
we went out to the dining room. Grand-
mother, of course, always precedes the others.

I minded my manners and did not speak till
I was spoken to.

"Where were you to-day. Azalea?" asked
Aunt Lorena. " Not in your room, I know.
You should not go out, child, without letting
us know where you were going."

I apologized.

" I went for a little ride. Auntie, and the
imps took hold of my bridle and led me
farther than I meant. I lunched with Miss
Delight Ravanel. You wished, I think, to
have me with the Ravanels as much as
possible."

" It was your grandmother who recom-
mended the Ravanels to you particularly, I
think."

" I thank whoever it was. I had a beautiful
time. Miss Ravanel is as quaint as an old gift
book, and as lonely as — as a rook."

" Rooks are not lonely," said Keefe. " They
go together in swarms."

" Lonely rooks are lonely," I said.

154 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

" I hope Miss Ravanel had received the
apricot jam I sent her? "

" I have a note from her, aunt, to that effect.
She has been meaning to thank you in person.
She also — in the note — begs that I may
spend the next fortnight with her."

"Should you like to?" asked Uncle David
in great surprise.

" Oh, immensely."

"My dear Azalea!" cried Aunt Lorena
incredulously.

" Why not? You advised me to make new
friends. I have. She is my new friend."

" But Delight Ravanel is old enough to be
your mother! And she's always raging at
things and people. How can you possibly
endure her for two weeks?"

" She was very pleasant indeed to-day. Per-
haps she is grouchy because she is lonely."

" Azalea," gasped my grandmother, " what
was the word you used? Grouchy? What
does that mean, pray? No such word was in
use in my day."

Then I saw myself as I was, a very naughty
young person, setting all these lovely folks
at odds.

THE PORTRAIT 155

"It means what I am to-night — cross and
hateful, dearest grandmother. Please, please
forgive me for using it. I ought never to
use anything but the nicest words I know in
your presence."

I picked up her little wrinkled hand and
squeezed it, and she looked at me as I love
to have her, with something of the love in
her eyes which she gave in the old days to
my unforgotten, wayward father.

" Aunt Lorena," I said, " she really does
want me to visit her. But I'll make it a week-
end instead of two weeks if you think best."

" We couldn't spare you for two weeks,
Azalea," said Uncle David kindly. " Make
it a week-end, do. For my part, I am glad
you like her. Particularly glad. She is a
lonely and hurt soul, is poor Delight, who
delights nobody."

At that, Carin, things I had heard came
back to me, and I knew she once had loved
uncle. It must be a terrible thing to love
someone, always, who cares nothing for you.
I can't think of anything worse.

" I already had made up my mind to like
her," I said.

156 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

When we went to the drawing-room it was
raining so terribly, and the wind was blowing
so wildly, that the great room w^as unbearable.

" Let's go to the writing room," said Aunt
Lorena.

The writing room is a delightful little place,
mostly occupied by a great sofa. There is a
wide fireplace, too, and seats coming out from
it at right angles. Young James built a great
fire for us, and Semmy brought in some
marvelous nut candies she had made, and
Martha served the coffee there.

" No light but the firelight, please, Lorena,"
commanded grandmother.

So we sat there by the light of the fire and
listened to the storm. Uncle and auntie were
together on one of the cushioned benches
beside the fire; grandmother was on the huge
lounge, wrapped in her camel's hair shawl
and heaped about with pillows; I sat down on
the other bench beside the fire. Keefe looked
at me a moment as if undecided what to do.
Then he bowed and asked :

''Have I your permission?"

'' Oh, yes," said I as simply as I could. So
we sat side by side for the first time in all our

THE PORTRAIT 1^7

lives, and after a time — after quite a time —
I felt his hand touching mine under the folds
of my flame-colored dress. It has a scarf to it,
that floats from the shoulders. It is quite vol-
• — how do you spell it? — voluminous. That
is why we could hold hands.

But I was afraid uncle and auntie were
watching us. So I had an idea.

" Oh, dearest dear grandmother," I said,
" this is the night of all the world for a story.
Grandmother, you must tell us a story — if
you please."

Grandmother gave a little laugh,

" I will do it," she said. '' I will tell 3^ou
the story of an ancestress of yours."

I have partly written that story, Carin, and
when I have finished it I shall send it to you.
Love — love from

Azalea

CHAPTER IX

grandmother's story

Mallowbanks, January 8th.
Car in, my leaking one:

Play you are sitting in the firelight with all
my family, and Keefe close beside me, and
the rain falling outside. If the wind whistles
down the chimney, it is, after all, not loud
enough to drown my little grandmother's voice,
for it is a high and musical one, and rises
above noises louder than itself. Very snug
and happy we all are. It is a witching hour,
and grandmother looks unearthly and shining,
with her hair gleaming in the firelight like a
silver cloud in the sun.

" Once on a time," said she, beginning her
story in the good old way, " there was an
ancestress of yours. Azalea, my dear, named
Dorothy Marshall. She was so gentle and
sweet a woman that long, long after she was
dead, the fame of her lived on, though no

158

GRANDMOTHER'S STORY 159

woman ever led a quieter life than she did.
They say she had fair hair and dark blue eyes,
with a complexion not pale, but golden, and
ripe, full lips, and a beautiful dimple in her
chin. In her youth she was a gallant horse-
woman and she could sail a boat like a man.
Indeed, it was the sea that she loved the best,
though she grew up amid beautiful fields and
was often in the mountains. But to be within
sound and sight of the sea, and to have the smell
of it in her nostrils, made her a happy woman
indeed.

" That may have been one of the reasons
that when she was only eighteen she married
Samuel Bings. Now the Bings were a sea-
faring family if ever there was one. Twelve
sons were there, giants all, and save one, each
before he died became the commander of his
own ship on the sea. They w^re merchantmen,
these ships, in the carrying trade between
Norfolk and ports all over the world, and to
this day there are many strange things in our
family which they brought from half around
the world.

" Samuel was the fifth son and of them all
the most like his father, who was a famous

160 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

seaman and had been thrice around the world,
and many times about the Horn. When
Samuel and Dorothy were married there was
feasting and dancing in the old Marshall home
at Norfolk, and good wishes from high and
low. They were so young, so handsome, so
fortunate, that only one cloud could be dis-
covered anywhere on their horizon, and that
was that either they must be apart, or Dorothy
must follow the fortunes of the sea with her
husband. This she would gladly have done
had it not been that her mother, whose only
daughter she was, suffered poor health and
could not endure to have her daughter leave
her. So it was decided that Samuel was to
make one journey more, for which he had
signed, and that he would then give up his
sailor's life and conduct a ship chandlery at
home.

" With that Dorothy begged him to go with
her for one last journey over the mountains,
that they might be together in solitude for a
while. So he took his fine roan, Pacolet, and
she her little mare, Bess, and they rode away
for a wonderful month among the mountains,
stopping where they pleased, and seeing the

GRANDMOTHER'S STORY 161

homes and plantations of their fellow Vir-
ginians, and everywhere they were entertained
with great consideration, for two handsomer or
more charming young people it would have
been difficult to find. Moreover, Samuel loved
his horse Pacolet better than anything in the
world save his bride, and to feel this faithful
and spirited steed under him, and to see the
fair face of his love shining with health and
joy, was, he thought, all that any man could
ask of fate.

" So it was with a stout heart that at last
he sailed away as commander of his elder
brother's merchantman. The Adventure, carry-
ing cotton to France and tobacco to Algiers
and gold to Constantinople. For you must
know. Azalea, that at that time — I think it
must have been about 1794, America did a
good trade among the ports of the Mediterra-
nean and even beyond. Perhaps, too, if you
have read your history, you will know how the
corsairs of the Barbary States preyed upon
these merchantmen, so that it was necessary
for America to place a fleet of battleships to
guard the African coast in order to protect
the merchant ships from the pirates. Notwith-

162 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

standing this, many a ship was held against its
will and its officers and crews made prisoners,
and it was a common thing for notices to be
read in American churches, giving the names
of those in captivity in Tripoli or Algiers.
Then would the friends and relatives of the
imprisoned men raise money and buy them
out again.

" But Samuel Bings had no fear. The Bings
were brave men and subtle men, and they
reckoned with their wits to keep them out of

trouble.

" ' Keep heart of grace, Dorothy, my love,'
said Samuel when he bade her good-bye. ' A
year may pass, or a year and a half at farthest;
then shall you see me home, and never more
will I quit shore save by your leave or in
your company.'

^' But hardly had he put to sea when troubles
came upon his bride. First her long-ailing
mother died; then three months after that her
father bade her farewell also. So she was left
alone in the world. She had kin in plenty —
though none of them were very near — who
would have welcomed her to their homes, but
they lived on plantations out of sight of the

GRANDMOTHER'S STORY 163

sea, and Dorothy had a mind to be where
she could see it rolling in bringing the brave
ships on it.

"'What if The Adventure should land and
Samuel come seeking me and I not be at
hand? ' she said.

" So she chose her a house on the side of the
hill that led up from the wharves, and from its
galleries she could see every ship that came
sailing into port. Here she made her a home,
putting into it whatever was most beautiful or
treasured from the old house of the Marshalls,
and those curious things which the brothers
Bings had brought her from China and Java
and Japan and the South Sea isles; yes, and
from the Bahamas and the Azores and the
Canaries and the Hebrides and all the islands
they had visited. Moreover, she made it her
business to build a fine stable for her husband's
beloved horse, Pacolet, so that he was tended
like a king's horse, and every day she rode him
to keep him in form, and she would take him
to a certain place where they could overlook
the sea, and the two of them would stand there
like statues, watching the horizon for a sight
of The Adventure.

164 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

" The year passed with no word from
Samuel. But Dorothy comforted her heart.

" ' Did he not say I might have to wait a
year and a half a year? ' she asked.

" But the year and the half year went by,
and it was two years, and then three, and noth-
ing was heard of the ship at all. So a dark
fear began to grow up in the heart of Dorothy,
and she never missed her church, not only
because she was devout, but because she
thought that some time she might hear the
name of her husband read as among those who
were lying in one of the cruel Barbary prisons
awaiting a ransom. But never a word did she
hear, and the years rolled by.

"Then came the year 1801 and Tripoli
declared war upon America, and Stephen
Decatur was sent to deal with the treacherous
governments of Tangier and Tripoli, and
there, after his victories, he saw to the release
of all American prisoners.

" ' Now, surely,' thought Dorothy Bings,
* my husband will return.'

" But he did not come, and though his
brothers, always traveling, inquired at all ports
if anything had been heard of him, they never

GRANDMOTHER'S STORY 165

were able to bring his waiting wife any word.

" Then the brothers, compassionate for her
youth and her sorrow, bade her accept her
widowhood with courage.

" ' Samuel is dead,' they said. ' He has died
the death of a sailor and a gentleman, rest you
sure. Be comforted, Dorothy. You loved him
well and he loved you, but he is gone. Accept
your sorrow and find another mate. He would
be the last one to wish you to dwell here alone
with your youth going and no child in your
house to comfort .you. We, his brothers, bid
you seek new happiness.'

'' And indeed the beautiful Mistress Bings
might have had her pick of many gallant
gentlemen. But though they sued her ardently,
and though she was lonely with a loneliness
beyond her words to express, she could not
bring herself to be the bride of any one
of them.

" ' For what,' said she, ' if I should wed
me, and some day Samuel should come home,
looking for me? What if he is eating his heart
out now in some dungeon or on some lonely
isle, dreaming of me and Pacolet, and I should
take the horse and myself to a new master?

166 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

No, no, I could never sleep quiet in my bed,
nor Pacolet in his stall, were we false to him.
He trusted us beyond all the world. We will
be faithful.'

" So the years rolled by, and at last silver
began to come in the golden hair of Mistress
Dorothy. But her longing, instead of growing
less, increased year by year, so that she did
little else but watch the harbor and the
wharves, and to every sailor man who came up
the street, staggering from his long journey,
she called :

" ' Pray pardon me, good sir, but have you
been overseas? Then perhaps you will tell
me if you saw anyway, in any port, a tall man
with steel blue eyes, named Samuel Bings.'

"And the sailors, high and low, paid her
courtesy, knowing her sad story, and respecting
her for her steadfastness, and they would stop,
hat in hand below her balcony, and tell her of
their voyages, and of what they knew con-
cerning the fate of missing men. But never a
one of them, stranger or friend, could bring
her word of the man she mourned.

" Because of this intercourse she came to
know many, many sailors, and since she was

GRANDMOTHER'S STORY 167

one of those whom sorrow teaches, they trusted
her and came to her in trouble, and brought
her their joys, too. She was the friend to
all, and since she had a liberal soul and a
well-filled purse, she was enabled to help many
a poor man in straits, and to send him on his
way with a strengthened heart

" At length, old age came upon her. She
leaned upon a stick when she walked, and she
must needs be wrapped in the rich shawls
brought her from far lands, when she sat upon
the galleries. But still her eyes were bright,
and they were always seeking, seeking, and her
voice was sweet though it quavered as she
leaned over her gallery's edge to question the
men who came up from the ships.

" ' She will never hear from Samuel Bings
this side heaven,' the sailor men fell into the
way of saying. And now she was so venerable,
and her sad story was so widely known, that
men coming to the port for the first time
would question if she was yet to be seen, and
they would salute as they approached, and
would wait to hear the questions that she
asked. She was to them like a ballad of true
love, or a chant grown dear with use. Indeed,

168 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

they made songs about her, and when they
argued for true love, they were able to point
to her. They venerated her silver hair, which
had once been golden, and it was to the glory
of Norfolk that she lived there.

" Then, one day as she sat in the sunshine,
watching the harbor and noting the ships and
the busy throng upon the wharves, and all the
business that had become to her as her very
life, an old, bent man, a sailor by his walk and
dress, came shambling up the street. She
never had seen him before, but no sooner had
her eyes fallen upon him than her heart gave a
great leap.

" ' Come to me,' she called to the faithful
servant who had been her companion since the
days when she was a bride. ' Come to me and
hold me by the arm, for I must question yon-
der man.'

" So the maid supported her, and Mistress
Bings got to the balustrade of her balcony, and
leaning over it, called to the old stranger.

" ' Your pardon sir, but have you been travel-
ing long and far? '

" The man lifted his cap, and as well as he
could for his bent back, he looked up at the

GRANDMOTHER'S STORY 169

silver-haired lady on the balcony above him.

" ' Long and far, madam,' he answered.

" ' Then I beg you of your goodness to come
up here and talk with me a while.'

" The old man hesitated, perplexed at such
an invitation. But she called again:

" ' I beg you of your goodness.'

" So he came, and she asked him to be seated
before her, and then she fixed her burning
eyes on him.

" 'Tell me, sir, have you in all of your
travels ever met a man named Samuel Bings
— a tall man with steel blue eyes, a sailor,
every inch of him?'

" The old man stared at her a moment, and
then started to his feet.

"'Are you,' he cried, 'his wife, Dorothy?
Had he a horse named Pacolet? '

" ' I knew it! I knew it,' cried Mistress
Bings. ' As soon as ever I saw you coming
up the street, I knew that at last I should hear
of him. Oh, tell me, sir, is he living still?'

" The old man sank into his seat again and
hung his huge head over his knees.

" ' No, madam, he is dead these ten years
since.'

170 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

a c

Ah, dead,' breathed Mistress Bings. ' He
is at rest, my Samuel. He is safe in his last
bed. He suffers no longer. May God rest
his soul! '

" For a little while she could say no more,
only now and then crying to her maid:

" ' He is at rest. He suffers no longer.'

" Then, when she was calmer, she turned
once more to the bowed stranger.

" ' For the love of God, sir, tell me all
you know.'

" So he told her the story of how he had
been a small planter in Jamaica, a man of
English birth, and how a great tobacco mer-
chant of that place had fitted out a ship to
convey his produce to the Turkish ports, and
how he, William Hull, had sailed with her,
being minded to take a voyage. They had a
fair crossing, and Hull said to himself that
now at last he was living, now at last, he was
seeing life. Then, off the Tripoli coast, the
ship was attacked by corsairs and captured, and
the captain and crew were thrown in prison.
In time, the captain and all of his men save
Hull were released, but Hull was of a restless
and quick nature, and would not make friends

GRANDMOTHEPv'S STOPvY 171

of his foes. The jailors complained that he
was quarrelsome; twice he tried to escape and
was recaptured; and he openly vowed
vengeance on Tripoli should he ever be a free
man again and upon a ship of his own country.
So, what with his hot-headedness, and the
warfare that was on then between America and
the Barbary States, he came under the notice of
the dey, who, regarding him as a dangerous
man, had him put in the dungeons below
ground. For a time he was all alone, and he
all but went mad in the solitude, but after a
time there was need to put a dangerous mur-
derer in his dungeon, and he was removed to
another place, and thrown in with an old,
half-crazed man.

" ' He had been a man of great stature,' said
Hull, ' and it Vv^as easy to see, in spite of all his
rags and filth, that he was a gentleman. He
greeted me courteously when I entered, and I
said to myself that now I should be able to
hold converse wdth a fellow-being, but indeed,
madam, it was little enough converse that we
held. He could hold to one theme but a
moment or two, and then he would fall under
a sort of spell, and would sit softly mumbling

172 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

to himself, as if he were going back over old
scenes. Then he would arouse himself and call
to me. And when I answered him, he would
say:

" ' " Man, man, if ever you go free, for the
love of God, search out my sweet wife Dorothy
and my good horse Pacolet, and tell them I
have not forgot."

" ' Sometimes he would sob when he spoke
these words, and sometimes he would call them
at the top of his voice. Again he would whis-
per them, and often in his sleep I would hear
him muttering: " My sweet wife Dorothy and
my good horse Pacolet." '

" The old stranger stopped in compassion,
for Mistress Bings lay with her face against
the high back of her chair, as colorless as snow.
But when she found that he had ceased, she
motioned for him to proceed.

" ' This is the greatest day of my life, save
one,' she said, ' and that was the day I became
a bride. Do not fear for me. Finish your
tale.'

" ' Nine years, lacking three months, we were
together in that dungeon,' continued Hull, ' and
then he died. A sudden cold, a closing of the

ii c

GRANDMOTHER'S STORY 173

lungs, and he was gone. He passed away In
my arms, madam, very peacefully, and with his
last breath he bade me carry messages to you.'
And you waited all these years, man? '
Madam, I knew nothing of the place he
called his home, and though he often tried for
hours at a time to remember, he could not recall
them. Never, in all that time, did he talk
lucidly upon any subject at all, save when he
spoke of you and his horse, and then he said
no more than I have told you. It was as if,
finding that all things were going from him,
he commanded himself to remember the two
beings he loved.'

"'Yet you knew his name, William Hull?'
said Mistress Bings.

" ' Aye, madam. When at last my old cap-
tain was able to secure my release, I begged
him and the governor to go with me to the
keeper of the prison, and there I told him that
I had but one little favor to ask in return for
the years of life he had wrenched from me, and
that was the name of my companion. So he
gave it to me — Bings. But he could not tell
me from what American port he had sailed, nor
would he give me anything of his story. To

174 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

this day, madam, I do not know the fate of his
ship or his crew, and I fear that this tragedy-
like many others, will be unrecorded to the
end of time.'

'' ' To the end of time,' whispered Mistress
Bings. ' To the end of time is a long while,
William Hull.'

'' ' So long it will never come,' said William
Hull.

" ' But he never forgot? My husband never
forgot? In darkness and solitude and madness,
he remembered me still?'

" ' Madam, it was his one joy.'

" ' Pacolet is long since dead,' said Mistress
Bings. ' He is buried in a fine field, and a great
bowlder is placed above his grave to mark it.*

" ' He loved his horse,' said William Hull.

'''May they meet in Paradise!' cried
Mistress Bings.

" ' What, madam, the soul of the man and —
and a horse? '

" ' May they meet in Paradise,' she repeated.
Then she bade William Hull enter her house,
and she feasted him well, and when he had
finished, she asked liim concerning his life and
his work, and when she found that though old,

GRANDMOTHER'S STORY 175

and bent and broken, he meant always to fol-
low the sea, a common sailor before the mast —
the least of all the signed men because of his
bent back — she cried:

" * Not so, William Hull. You shall not so
weary yourself. If you have a mind to stay on
land, I will build you a snug house on one of
my plantations; but if you prefer the sea, I
will buy you a yawl, and you can sail from
port to port along our coast here.'

" So at first William Hull spoke for the sea
and the yawl, but when he learned that she
would no longer live in the house that watched
the harbor — there being no reason why she
should continue to search the faces of returning
sailors, looking among them for the one she
loved — but would go onto a plantation and
live among her trees and flowers, he elected to
live near her and to be her servant. To the
end, he served her, and she guarded him, he
for the sake of a man who, though bereft of his
senses, was still an affectionate friend, she for
the sake of the bridegroom who had never for-
gotten his love, and who had been snatched
from the sunlight to wither in a dungeon all
his days."

176 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

That is the tale my grandmother told.

And all the while, Carin, I let my hand stay
in Keefe's. The fire fell low, the wind grew
higher, and the story, you might have thought,
would have made us sad. But it did not do so.
Grandmother walked up the stairs to her room
with her head lifted; I saw Uncle David and
Aunt Lorena going down the corridor hand
in hand. As for me, I could have danced. I
do not know what Keefe thought, but I heard
him singing " Annie Laurie " when he reached
his room. I saw then that the story had risen
above sorrow into joy, and when I went to bed
I was very, very happy — happier than ever
before in my life. It is wonderful to know
there is really such a thing as true love in the
world, isn't it?

Azalea

CHAPTER X

" THE WATERS OF QUIET "

Mallowbanks, January 21st.
My own Car'in:

I no longer have a grandmother.

She has gone. She is dead; but we are trying
not to grieve. We are thinking of her as sail-
ing on " the waters of quiet " to where her
husband and her beloved son await her.

It was her love for that dead son, my father,
that brought about her death. Soon after I
wrote you last, we could see that a cloud was
settling over her spirit. She was very restless
and could not sleep, but would go wandering
about the house if she were not prevented.

" I reckon ole Miss has got to studyin' about
Mars Jack again," said Semmy to me. Indeed,
all of us in the house could see that this was so.
She became suspicious of us and thought we
were watching her to prevent her from going
out to her boy. She thought he was living

177

178 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

again, young and wayward, with no friend but
herself, and though she seemed to be reasonable
enough upon other subjects, in regard to that
she was quite insane.

Martha was set to watch her early and late,
and when she was weary Semmy or I took her
place. She was sweet and gay at moments.
One afternoon she showed me her painted fans
and her jewels, and told me they would be
mine, some day, and I was naughty enough to
say:

" But madam grandmother, what shall little
Azalea do with all those? Don't you think her
little string of ' Job's tears ' and a peacock fan
made by herself become her better?"

That teased her, as I knew it would.

" My dear Azalea," she said in her most
earnest manner, " you are a true Knox, and
these jewels and fans will become you. Wear
them, not only for your own sake, but for the
credit of your family."

I like to think of those last days we spent
together. They were dreamy, and happily-
sad — diflferent from other days altogether.
Keefe was finishing her portrait, but we would
no longer let her sit to him. He caught her

"THE WATERS OF QUIET" 179

expressions from day to day and made studies
of them, and touched up the portrait by him-
self. It was wonderful to me to see her
sparkling, wrinkled, aristocratic face, at once
so worldly and so spiritual, growing out of the
canvas. Then, when she told him that he was
to make a second copy of it, that I might have
one for my very own, you can fancy my pride
and satisfaction.

Well, we had fallen into the way of locking
the two doors that lead from her bedroom, so
that if she should be taken with one of her old
wandering spells and should try to slip by
Martha, who had a cot in the room with her,
she would be unable to get out. I slept in the
little dressing room next to her that I might be
of assistance to JVIartha should she need me,
and several times she did, for grandmother
insisted on going out to the old place at the end
of the garden. Once she had her jewel case
with her, and insisted that Jack must have the
jewels, because he was going hungry and was
sleeping by the wayside, while she and all the
rest of the family lived in luxury. It took me
a long time to quiet her.

But she was so well guarded that we thought

180 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

no harm could possibly come to her. But
the hour came when we all failed her. I
cannot bear to think of it. No one in the house
can.

It happened this way. I had gone motoring
with Uncle David and Keefe. Aunt Lorena
remained at home to be near grandmother, and
Martha was in immediate charge. But Martha
is old, too, and though she is most loyal, she
does not always use the best judgment. At any
rate, while Aunt Lorena was down with the
cook talking over Sunday's dinner. Grand-
mother sent Martha to call her. She said she
wished to consult with her at once upon some
important matter.

So Martha, nothing doubting, went in search
of Aunt Lorena, and when she came back
grandmother was missing. She had been in
the little upstairs sitting room, but she was
not to be found there nor in her bedroom.
Unfortunately, Martha wasted a few minutes
in looking for her on the second story, and then
she came trembling down to the first floor, her
old knees quaking under her, and looked there
without success. Old James had been tidying
up the walk in front of the house — for there

a

THE WATERS OF QUIET" 181

had been a rain and a cold wind, and twigs and
branches were lying all about the ground —
and he said she had not come out. So more
time was spent in searching for her all about
the great rambling house. The servants began
looking in the rooms we never use, and then
they ran up to the attic, thinking she might be
up there looking over her chests and boxes as
she likes to do sometimes. But she was not
there either.

Then Uncle David, Keefe and I came home.

I had noticed as we swept around the drive
which goes by the east wing of the house, that
a certain little side door opening into the gar-
den, stood ajar, which was curious for this time
of the year. It is a door used only in the sum-
mer time, and then usually by someone who
wishes to escape quietly into the garden without
being seen by those in the front of the house.

" It's a cold day for a door to be standing
open like that," I said to Uncle David.

" Curious," he said. " Mr. O'Connor, as you
go in, be kind enough to close it. It leads from
the little coat room beneath the stairs."

Keefe and I went in together, and then we
heard the tumult in the house.

182 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

"We can't find your grandmother!" said
Aunt Lorena to me, showing her white face at
the head of the stairs. With that it flashed
through me at once that she had escaped by the
side door. I flung off my motor coat and ran
for the coat room and through the door into
the garden. There, sure enough, by the narrow
brick terrace was the imprint of her little shoe.

'' Come, Keefe, come," I called, for I felt
there was great trouble ahead, and I wanted
him to be with me, Carin. Yes, I can tell you,
my dear, to whom every event, almost every
feeling of my life, is known, that I wanted him
above everyone else in the world.

It was almost dark by this time, and the two
of us ran out, hand in hand, and down the gray
garden in the mist. Nothing looked natural
to me. The very shrubbery, wreathed all in
white as it was, frightened me. The bushes
looked like strange, unheard-of beasts, crouch-
ing to spring. And the whole place was so
terribly still! I could feel my breath catching
in my throat and strangling me.

" It is at the end of the garden she goes to
meet him," I managed to say through my
throat.

"THE WATERS OF QUIET" 183

"To meet whom?" asked Keefe. (I never
had told him the story of my father.)

" Pier dead son," I gasped, and said no more.
For how could I explain then? Keefe looked
at me as if he thought I was out of my head,
but I said nothing, and we ran on.

And then we came to the pool — the little
sweet pool that is like the heart of the garden.
The three swans were close to the shore looking
at something dark that lay there.

And it was she, Carin. It was little madam
grandmother. She had fallen with her face in
the water, and it seemed as if she had not even
tried to rise.

Keefe saw her and sprang to her and picked
her up in his arms, and I came and looked at
her.

" She has gone where she wished to go," said
Keefe. " She is with her son."

" Yes, I am sure it is as she would like it to
be," I cried, and I held her hand in mine all
the way to the house, and wondered if she
knew I was glad for her — that I was con-
gratulating her.

But, Oh, Carin, hovv^ one's throat can ache!
How one's heart can hang heavy, like a weight!

184 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

How one's eyes can burn and head can throb,
and how one's thoughts can heavily turn and
turn, like an iron wheel! Did you ever have
a great sorrow? Oh, yes, I remember that you
did, when your three brothers were lost in that
horrible theater fire. Well, I have had a great
sorrow before, too, when I lost my little mother.
But I was so young then and so generally mis-
erable, and life had been hideous for so long,
that it was only one added pang. It was diflfer-
ent from this. I seem unable to get that scene
in the garden out of my mind. Grandmother
seems still to be fluttering before those portraits
of herself, or in among the cabinets in the
drawing-room, or along the corridors, beckon-
ing to her old Martha, or calling out to me:
" Your arm. Azalea, please."

The funeral was strangely quaint and beau-
tiful. So many old people came — old friends
from far away as well as near at hand, and I
cannot begin to tell you about the curious
coaches and carriages that some of them came
in. The bishop preached the service, the fun-
eral being held, oddly enough, in the old ball-
room of the house — the room where grand-
mother had danced as a bride. But it looked

"THE WATERS OF QUIET" 185

very imposing and solemn on the day of her
burial. It is paneled in dark wood, and all
about it were candles burning in their sconces,
and from grandmother's coffin trailed a great
cloth of gold and black brocade.

The bishop had a voice like an organ, and
when I heard him reading:

" I am the resurrection and the life," my
sorrow seemed to lighten.

Everyone was very kind to me — much
kinder than I had any right to expect. I had
to meet many of the old family friends. It was
really required of me. Aunt Lorena explained,
for there were a number present on this occa-
sion who had not been at my coming-out party.
So, after the funeral, I was introduced to them.

You understand, Carin, grandmother was not
taken from the house after the funeral. No,
she was left lying up in that splendid room,
and downstairs the funeral guests were given
some refreshments — for most of them had
come a long way, and many were old — and
then, at midnight, the old servants carried the
coffin to the great vault that stands in a grove
near the house, and Uncle David and Aunt
Lorena and Keefe and I followed, and she was

186 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

laid away with others of her family, my father
among the rest.

There are cypress trees and hemlocks round
about this vault, and they stood up black against
the dark sky, sw^aying and crying. Not one of us
spoke a word, and the only sound w^as the
sobbing of the black people. I felt more like
crying than I ever had before in my life — yes,
I wanted to sob aloud and to call to grand-
mother to come back. Little sweet, proud,
loving, laughing grandmother! But I kept
very still. It seemed as if I could read Keefe's
thoughts and as if he wxre telling me to be
quiet. So I said over and over to myself the
last line of a lovely poem I read the other
day. " * O waters of quiet, go softly.' "

After so long a life, one must be glad to rest.
I found out that night, Carin, how that death,
like life, is sweet and all in the course of things
and nothing to be afraid of.

Going back to the house I told Keefe that.

" Life is our comrade," he said, " but death
is our mother, holding out kind hands to us
when v/e are tired."

When he left me he — he kissed me, Carin.
On the forehead. I shall always remember.

"THE WATERS OF QUIET" 187

I did not leave my room the next day. I
wanted to think. Old Semmy stayed with me.
But I did not mind her. I like old Semmy.
She rocks to and fro like the trees and seems
to be waiting to give comfort when comfort is
needed. And that is like trees, too. After my
little mama died I used to wrap my arms about
the trees up there on the mountain-side and
w^eep and v/eep, and they were very kind to
me — those great chestnuts and hemlocks. But
now I am thinking out many things. I couldn't
have written to anyone save you. But soon I
shall write dear Mother McBirney and Annie
Laurie. (I have, of course, sent them word.)

Carin, tell me if you love me.

Azalea

********

Mallowbanks, January 30th.
Oh, Carin-girl :

Other troubles have come to me — things I
never dreamed of. I don't know how to meet
them. They aren't things like death, that just
have to be accepted with courage. No, they
are things I have to decide about. I have to
make up my mind what is right and what is

188 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

wrong. I never knew before that it could be
hard to do that.

This is the story: Two days after dear little
grandmother was buried, I was told that the
family solicitor would be at the house at three
in the afternoon and that the will would be
read, and I was expected to be present. So I
put on one of the new black dresses that
tell their own story, and when the time came I
went down to the library. Uncle and auntie
were there before me, and they introduced me
to Mr. Lindsay, and then when the servants
had come, he read grandmother's will.

She was a rich woman, of course, but I had
not guessed how rich, and she gave bequests to
Martha and James which would make it
unnecessary for them to work any more, with
substantial remembrances to the other servants,
and a fine sum to the college her sons attended,
and then all of the rest she divided between
Uncle David and me.

Only —

Only I was not to have mine — except for a
small annuity — unless I married according to
Uncle David's wishes.

This, the will said, was not because of lack

"THE WATERS OF QUIET" 189

of affection for me or lack of confidence in me,
but only because my early associations were
such, and I was of such an impulsive nature,
that I was in danger of doing something I
would always regret. So she placed me lov-
ingly in her son's hands, and expected me to
defer to his judgment in all things.

Aunt Lorena looked down through all the
reading of the will, and when it was all over I
tried to take her hand, but she wouldn't let me,
and it was Semmy who took my hand and led
me away to my room. I lay down on my
lounge and thought and thought. I could hear
the winter wind shouting through the pines,
and outside the twilight was stormy and bleak.
Semmy wanted to build up a fire and to bring
me tea there in my room, but I did not want a
fire and tea. There was only one thing in the
world that I wanted then, and I knew per-
fectly well what it was.

It was Keefe O'Connor.

And it was on account of him that grand-
mother had made that will. She had seen that
we cared for each other. She had not wanted
me to marry him. I knew then as well as when
Uncle David had told me, that she particularly

190 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

objected to him — that is, that she particularly
objected to having him marry me. Not that
he ever really asked me to, or that we would
marry for years and years. Yet — yet I know
that is what she meant when she made that
will.

So now, Carin, I have learned my second
great lesson this week. The first was, that
there could not be life without death, and that
if life is sweet, why so is death sweet too;
and the second is that life cannot be sweet
without liberty.

Yes, I know it is an old, old truth, and that
I ought to have known it long ago. But to
read a thing, or even to say it, is very different
from realizing it.

I lay there asking myself if freedom meant
more to me than anything else. And I decided
that it did. It wasn't Keefe, merely, that made
me ask this question, or decide in this way. It
was the whole principle of the thing. Should
I sell my right to do as J thought best — to do
the thing that would bring me happiness — for
the sake of a fortune?

I did not go down to dinner. Semmy carried
my excuses for me.

''THE WATERS OF QUIET" 191

Then, a little later in the evening she came
to ask if I would see Mr. Keefe in the writing
room. That was the room, you will remember,
where we all sat together the night grand-
mother told us the story about Dorothy Bings.

I said I would go, and I brushed my hair
and went on down the stairs. Uncle David and
Aunt Lorena were sitting in the library and
they saw me, and called out to know if I was
feeling better, and I told them quite frankly
that I was not — thank them, very much.

So, with them looking at me, I went on to
the writing room, and Keefe stood there by
the door waiting for me, and we went in and
sat down there, one on each side of the table.
There was no firelight this time to cheer us.
The room was so chilly that it made my teeth
chatter, but I did not really think about that
till afterward.

" Mr. Knox has told me," said Keefe as
soon as we were seated, " about your grand-
mother's will. He has said that he hopes I will
not make the fulfillment of its conditions diffi-
cult for you."

" How did he know that you were likely
to? " I asked.

,192 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

" He could not very well help but know that,
Azalea. Anyone who has seen me with you
must have known that I loved you."

" Then you do? " I said. " You do, Keefe? "

" Why should I need to take the trouble to
say it? " he demanded. " Haven't you known
it from the first? "

"I have hoped it — sometimes."

" Hoped it? " he said. " Haven't you heard
me say it? "

"Once — only once. But I thought that
might have been an accident."

Oh, Carin, what beautiful eyes he has! He
took my hands in his there across the table.
We knew quite well that Aunt Lorena could
see us from where she sat, but we did not care
at all.

" Did you promise my uncle that you would
not make it hard for me? "

" No. I said if you wished it I would go
away."

" Forever? "

" Not at all. For the present. I said I
would go away and give you a chance to make
up your mind. Your uncle and aunt wish to
take you to Europe with them. They want you

"THE WATERS OF QUIET" 193

to travel for a year or two. You will meet
other men, men whose lives and training will
make them fitter companions for you than I
can ever be."

"Keefe!" I said sharply. "Don't muddle
up facts like that. Your early training was
propriety itself compared with mine."

" Nevertheless, now you are a very rich
woman. You bear the name of an old and
distinguished family."

" Not half so distinguished as the O'Con-
nors," I laughed. " Weren't they kings in
Ireland once? "

" But my name is not even O'Connor, as you
know."

" Well, whatever your name may be by
rights, Keefe — and at this moment I have
forgotten what it is — there is one word I can-
not forget, and that is spelled L-I-B-E-R-T-Y.
In America we have always had a regard for
that little word. Perhaps we have preferred
it to any in the language. Hundreds of thou-
sands of men have died for it, and as many
women have had broken hearts because of it.
I'm not going to be behind them in my regard
for it. I — have you asked me? I love you.

194 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

Keefe. I'd rather be one year with you than,
twenty with anybody else. I shan't mean any-
thing to myself if I try to live my life away
from you. I choose you, Keefe. I set the
fortune aside and choose you."

'^ No, Azalea," he said, breathing as if he
had been running, " no, you mustn't choose
yet. As your uncle says, it isn't fair. I ought
to go away — I ought to give you a chance to
clear your mind. It isn't clear now — "

" But I want you to stay," I broke in.

And just then Uncle David came to the door.

" Nevertheless, Azalea," he said quietly,
" Mr. O'Connor, having finished both of your
grandmother's portraits, will be leaving for the
North to-morrow."

"Oh, but why to-morrow?" I cried.

" Because," he said, still in that quiet voice,
" it is best so. I sympathize with you, my girl.
But believe me, it is best so."

That is the way it stands, Carin. He has
gone. It is very quiet here in the house. Miss
Delight Ravanel has asked me to spend a week
with her and I have accepted.

Always icith love,

Azalea.

CHAPTER XI

A FRIEND

Monrepos, January 28.
Carin, darling:

Thank you for all your letters. You are very
good to me. No matter how careless I am
about writing, you never forget, you dear!
And now I think I am to send you congratula-
tions because you are engaged to that fine Vance
Grevy. Truly, I think him one of the most
interesting young men I have ever known.
Moreover, he looks good, and true, and firm
and enduring. Oh, little Carin, my own yellow-
headed one, be very happy with him! I send
you a thousand kisses and ten thousand good
wishes, and I want you to know that if ever,
ever I can do anything for you, I want to be
allowed to do it. Please find something for
me to do. You must not be so happy that you
will forget me. I have always known there
was a jealous streak in my disposition, and I
am feeling it right now.

195

196 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

You say you have your ring? Your engage-
ment ring! It's not like other engagement
rings? How nice! A pink pearl. Weil,
pearls suit you just as they do your darling
mother.

I am so glad that she and your father like
your Vance. Oh, fortunate girl! Always
beautiful things happen to you. That, of
course, is just as it ought to be. I hope they
will keep right on happening to you all through
life.

But, once more, in your happiness, do not
forget your Azalea. For she is not very happy.
No, though now she has much money and
some friends — you, always, and Barbara and
Annie Laurie, not to mention others — yet she
is sad. Things are wrong — quite wrong.

I told you I was coming over here to visit
Miss Delight Ravanel at her quaint old home,
which she calls " Monrepos." Aunt Lorena
was quite willing I should come. She and I
had a frank talk together, and now I under-
stand many things that I did not before.

" I am going to ask you. Aunt Lorena," I
said to her, " if you truly like me. You mustn't
be polite, please, because that would not help

A FRIEND 197

me at all. You asked me to come here, and I
came, and you have been very kind, and I have
done the best I could. But lately there has
been a change. You — you have not looked
at me quite the way you used. Or at any rate,
the understanding between us is not perfect.
So let us speak out and say what we really
think."

A silly woman would have been disagreeable,
probably, at having a young girl speak this
way, but Aunt Lorena is not silly, and she is
not disagreeable.

" Azalea," she said quietly, " I truly like
you. I am, indeed, happily surprised in you.
I like you better as a house companion than I
thought I could like any woman. For, to tell
the truth, I am not a social person. If I have
not looked at you in quite the old way, it is
because I feel conscious of the complications
that have arisen. I do not believe. Azalea, in
trying to influence the life of another in the
way that your grandmother has tried to influ-
ence your life. It is not right. I believe that
everyone should be free in this world, so far as
possible, and your grandmother has taken your
freedom away from you."

198 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

" Yes," I said, " she has. But she meant to
be wise and kind for me. I loved her, Aunt
Lorena, and I always shall."

" Are you willing to abide by the terms of
her will? Are you willing to marry the man
your uncle approves of — the man who will,
according to your grandmother's idea, bring
credit to the family?"

She looked so intense and sympathetic that
I couldn't help laughing.

" I am willing to marry just one man," I
found courage to say. " I hope uncle will
approve of him."

" If you mean Keefe O'Connor," she said in
her high voice, " you will see that your hopes
are not realized. Your uncle likes him very
much personally, but your grandmother did
not. Or at least, she did not approve of having
him enter the Knox family. It was to keep
him from doing so that she made her will as
she did. She told your uncle that."

Carin, was it very bad of me to laugh again.

*' Then," I said, " I shall have to let the
fortune go, Aunt Lorena."

She lifted both of her thin white hands in
warning.

A FRIEND 199

" That is very easy for you to say, my dear,
very easy indeed. You are young and do not
know the value of money and of position and
of an estate like this. It is the feeling that you
do not realize these things, that made it neces-
sary for your uncle and myself to ask Mr.
O'Connor to — to absent himself — until you
have had time to make up your mind. We
want you to travel and to see the world. We
w^ant you to meet people and to have a chance
to compare this one with that. But when we
insist upon all this, it may seem to you as if
we were opposing you and setting ourselves
against your happiness, whereas, above every-
thing else, we want to do what is for your best
interest."

She looked more solemn than ever.

" You are going against your own heart,
Auntie," I told her. " It is that which makes
you seem so changed. Oh, don't think about it
at all. Just treat me the way you did at first.
Love me, love me! Somehow, the other matter
will straighten itself out. We have troubles
enough without bringing any on ourselves."

But she wouldn't take the matter lightly. She
seemed very much depressed. Uncle was very

200 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

sad, too, partly on account of the loss of his
mother, partly because he was made to act the
part of a ' stern guardian,' when it is not in
keeping with his nature. I feel sure he tried
to dissuade grandmother from doing what she
did, but he did not succeed. I think, myself,
that if people at Mallowbanks had more to do
they would be a great deal happier.

Well, anyway, I kept my promise to my nice
twenty-seventh cousin, Miss Ravanel, and came
away over to her, and was put in a quaint, bare,
sunny room, and here I have been for almost
a week. My chocolate is sent up to my bed in
the morning; Miss Ravanel does not appear
until ten. Then we meet in the morning room
and she embroiders while I read " Lorna
Doone " to her. She has been in England in
the Lorna Doone country, and she interrupts
the reading to tell me about what she has seen.
It is very interesting. But, Oh, Carin, it is as if
I were listening to something afar off, and as if
the bright fire burning in the grate, the pale
sunshine on the pines, the little room with its
fantastic chintz, were all a dream.

It does not seem real at all to me. Is it be-
cause I am always thinking of something else?

A FRIEND 201

Did I do well, Carin, to give up my life with
Mother McBirney, my little busy, useful, strug-
gling life, and to come here among my relatives,
who are, after all, strangers? Yes, yes, I know
that for a time I felt at ease with them, that
to be among my own people brought me great
delight. But now, suddenly, I seem useless and
stripped of all that made life rich.

********

Carin, I have just been reading this over,
and I never read anything more dismal. You
remember that song of Jean Ingelow's where
the dove sat on the mast and mourned and
mourned and mourned. Well, I sound pre-
cisely like that ridiculous dove.

I know if you were here you would give me
a piece of your mind. So would Keefe. So
would Annie Laurie. Actually I am glad none
of you is here. Mercy me, how you would
scold me!

It has occurred to me during the last minute
and a half that I haven't been treating my tre-
mendously nice little hostess very well. And
how good she has been to me!

I am going to reform. I shall ask her if

202 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

she'll not go walking — she loves to walk —
and I shall suggest visiting old Mrs. Tread-
way, w^hom Miss Ravanel likes to look after.

Carin, forgive me for being such a dolorous
creature. And you so happy, too! I wanted to
do something for you, and I go and throw cold
water on your sparkling day with a sighing,
moaning letter. Shame on me.

/ love you,

Azalea

********

Monrepos, February 1st.
Carin girl:

So you are to be at Lee for the spring vaca-
tion. What fun! Of course I shall try to get
there. I feel as if I m.ust see you. And do you
really mean to tell me that you vv^ant me to go
to Europe with you, Carin? How w^onderful
that would be. But I couldn't, could I? If I
go at all I must go with Uncle David and Aunt
Lorena. So that's settled.

What do you think Miss Ravanel and I have
been doing? Making dresses. She needed
some and there didn't seem to be anybody at
hand to make them, and so I said to please let

A FRIEND 203

me try. At first she thought I would make a
botch of them. But not at all. Mother Mc-
Birney taught me to be very particular, and I
have a sort of a " touch " as you and Annie
Laurie always said. The dresses, which are for
spring, are really very nice. She said she never
had any that really suited her so well.

While we sewed, she told me many things
about her life. I was quite right; she did
love my Uncle David when she w^as a girl and
he was a 3^oung man, but when Aunt Lorena
came back from boarding school, he fell ter-
ribly in love with her and went to Miss
Ravanel and told her, and she bade him do
whatever his heart prompted.

" You're not going to hate me, are you,
Delight?" he asked her.

"Hate you?" she said. "Why should I
hate you? I w^ant you to be very happy and I
mean to be happy myself."

" You will marry someone much more
Vv^orthy of you than I am," he assured her. She
said that was as might be. She hoped she
would love someone again. But she never did,
Carin. All of her life she has had to see her
kin leaving her, either to go to some other part

204 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

of the country, or Into the family vault, and
never once has she met anyone she could care
for. But she says she has been quite happy
after all.

" I love life," she told me. " I like to watch
the seasons roll around, and I enjoy each one
as it comes. I am never tired of walking about
my woods and my garden, and it amuses me
to care for my old house. I enjoy my books,
my music and my thoughts. Sometimes I am
glad that I never married. I have fallen into
very quiet ways, and it would disturb me to
have anyone about, except someone like your-
self. Azalea."

When I see her, so shy and dainty and con-
tent, going about her little duties and hospital-
ities, I am glad, too, that she did not marry.
She is like a little domestic nun. I like her the
way she is.

Uncle and Aunt Lorena called this morning
to ask me when I was coming home, and I told
them I would come any time they liked, and
they wanted me to go with them at once, but
Miss Ravanel begged that I might stay over
one Sunday more. She wants to teach me to
make Washington pie, and we both want to

A FRIEND 205

finish " Lorna Doone." So I am staying. I'm
much happier. This is just a line to tell you.

Your oivn

Azalea

********

Mallowbanks, February 10.
Dearest Carin:

We are getting ready to go to England. Aunt
Lorena is having a charming outfit made for
me. Now that she and I really understand
each other, we are getting along together beau-
tifully. You see, she is a frank, straight-for-
ward, fair-minded woman and she couldn't
enjoy herself while she thought I was not being
fairly treated. But now that I know every-
thing, and that she sees I have the courage to
make my choice, she feels better about it all.

I wish you could see my new clothes. They
are delightful, and so becoming! They are
very practical too. We are not going to take
quantities of things, because it would only
bother us. But I have my traveling suit of
Scotch cloth in a small blue and green plaid,
and a hat of blue silk braid trimmed with
green, and a steamer rug and coat that look

206 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

well with it; and then two little silks for dinner,
nights when we are stopping at any rather
fashionable places — one of old rose, and the
other of dove color. The pink will be for
gay moods, the dove color for pensive ones.
Then there is my street suit of tan with shoes
and gloves to suit, and the cleverest hat you
ever saw, with two big tawny chrysanthemums
on it. I don't seem to be very good at describ-
ing clothes, but really, as I said at the begin-
ning, these things are charming.

Then to think of seeing England! Me,
Azalea! I don't believe it. I cannot bring
myself to see that it can possibly be true.

Carin, that reminds me: Why don't you
ask Annie Laurie to go abroad with you? Do
you know, I think she would do it. I remem-
ber hearing your mother say to her, years and
years ago, that some day she and Annie Laurie
would be together in Europe, listening to great
music. And why not? Annie Laurie could
easily afford it. Sam Disbrow is through with
school now, and he could look after Annie
Laurie's dairy. Propose it, do. Perhaps we
could all meet over there.

I must run down to see Mother McBirney

A FRIEND 207

before I go. Father McBirney is almost well
and hopes to reach home in March to do the
plowing. He will get someone to help him of
course, for Jim is to stay on at school. I have
placed a certain sum in the bank for Jim —
enough to last him till he has graduated if he
is careful. And Jim is careful. I made up my
mind that whatever happened, I was going to
see that Jim got what he wanted in the way
of an education. He really is wonderfully
bright and learns so fast that I don't see how he
can remember all that he crams into his head.

Keefe doesn't write. That was a part of the
bargain that he made with Uncle David — that
he was not to write.

But I write to him.

Is that terribly bold?

But you wouldn't think so if you could see
the letters. Anyway, sometimes they aren't
letters. They are just envelopes with little
poems In them that I find in the magazines or
newspapers and the like. Of course, some-
times I write a poem, too. About daffodils,
you know, or sunsets, or rainy days. Never
anything sentimental. Not at all. Or per-
sonal. I wouldn't be personal. I merely

208 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

remind Keefe that I am alive. A couple of
violets in a blank sheet of paper will do that
nicely. Aunt Lorena knows. She doesn't
approve. Not quite, that is. She says it is
foolish. So since then I've only been sending
little drawings — pictures of people who call,
and one of the Grevy's parrot, and another of
some geese I saw flying north. They are such
bad drawings that they are quite sure to annoy
Keefe. I pointed out their badness to Aunt
Lorena.

" Wouldn't it be a good idea to annoy him? "
I asked. " Now just look at this sketch of a
cat which I mean to send him. That cat will
make him furious. I tried to foreshorten it,
but I seem to have performed a surgical opera-
tion on it instead."

^' He'll have you arrested for cruelty to
animals," she agreed. " But really. Azalea, I
wish you would keep perfectly silent. This
young man does not write to you. Are you
doing what is dignified? "

" Aunt Lorena," I said, shaking my finger at
her, " my own private opinion is that he is writ-
ing to me every night of his life, and filing
the letters away for future reference."

A FRIEND 209

Aunt Lorena lifted her eyebrows very, very
high. I smiled.

"What are you laughing at, Azalea?" she
asked sharply.

" At your Gothic eyebrows, dearest Auntie,"
I said. Then I kissed her.

" Don't ask me to be too dignified," I begged.
" I'm only Azalea."

" Azalea Knox is a very pleasing and inter-
esting young woman of a good deal of
importance in the world, if she would only
realize it," she said.

I looked at her a moment.

" She's not so very, very happy," I said. The
tears came in her eyes, and her eyebrows were
not pointed at all. Really, Aunt Lorena is a
dear. You just have to break through her crust.
The only trouble is that the crust grows over,
and you have to keep breaking through. It
makes you feel a little like an Eskimo, fishing.

" I am truly sorry," she said. " But I think
if she is a really obedient and patient girl that
some day she will be very happy, and that she
will thank the friends who now seem to her to
be afflicting her."

We didn't say anything for a few minutes.

210 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

Then I ventured:

" Then you really think I ought not to send
anything to Keefe? Not even this terrible
drawing of a cat? Not even to make him
laugh and — and hold me in contempt?"

She laughed at that.

" Not for any reason at all," she said.

'' Then, Aunt Lorena, let me send word just
once more — only once. It will be the end."

"The end?"

" I will never direct another envelope of any
sort to him till he writes to me. If he has
given his word, he will not do that until — "

" Until? " Her eyebrows were Gothic arches
again.

" Until we find, beyond all question, that we
cannot live apart."

'' Piffle," she said. " One can live without
anyone. It is a mere question of making up
one's mind."

I sent Keefe the terrible little picture of the
cat.

" Keefe," I wrote him, " please excuse me for
being a bold-faced minx. I must be one, or I
wouldn't have sent you poems and violets and
things. Kindly observe this drawing of a cat.

A FRIEND 211

It is a cat, I don't care what you say. She
looks as I feel, somewhat cramped. But she
is a good cat, and I am a good, obedient girl.
I shall waste no more stamps on you. I am
going to England, and I am commanded to be
very happy. So, since I am obedient, pray
think of me as being not only happy but gay."
I signed my name to it — just "Azalea" —
and sent it ofif. Now I shall write no more.

Farewell,

Azalea

P. S. I wish you could see my traveling veil.
It looks like a peacock's breast. Clothes are
nice, aren't they? I never realized before how
nice they are.

CHAPTER XII

A TRAVEL LOG

London! London! London!

April tenth.
Car in J my dear:

I haven't been writing to you because I
haven't thought best. I didn't want to put
myself on record. I have been keeping my
thoughts to myself, and I never could have
done that successfully if I had been gossiping
to you, could I? Anyway, I knew you were
particularly happy and busy. You were down
to Lee for the spring vacation I suppose and
opened up the Shoals, and had your own
Vance Grevy there, and delightful people to
meet him and all that. Then you went back
to Vassar. And in tw^o months you will be
graduating, and then you and your people will
come over to Europe, bringing, I hope, Annie
Laurie with you. I believe you agreed with
me that it would be a fine thing for both of
you if she would join you.

212

A TRAVEL LOG 213

As for me, I have been living in two worlds
at once: this mellow, storied world of England,
and my own little secret world of memories
and dreams. We have had unusual oppor-
tunities for seeing the real English life. Both
Aunt Lorena and Uncle David have relatives
and friends here, and we have been entertained
in a number of homes very graciously indeed.

I like the English people. They are not
always fizzing and bubbling like Americans.
There is a repose about them and a quietness
of character that rests me. It even rests me
from my fizzly and bubbly self.

But deep down, Carin, beneath all the effer-
vescence, there is something very quiet and
peaceful in me. When I am alone, after the
day of sight-seeing and chattering and laugh-
ing and admiring, I and this Still Soul of mine
sit down together and commune.

Then I am no longer foolish. I am some-
thing that — how shall I put it? Something
that forever strives! Is that it? I want to do
well with my little life, Carin. I want to spin
my silver web very beautifully, so that when I
am old, and the web is all but done, I can look
it over and be satisfied with it.

214 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

I have been keeping a diary, and in it are
descriptions of all the places I have seen and
the record of what I have done each day. When
we get together again I shall show this to you,
and then you can read all about what has
been happening to me. But having written
those descriptions once, I don't at all feel like
doing it again.

Anyway, what is the use? You have seen all
of these places. They were an old story to you
before I so much as thought of coming over
here. But I do love London! Uncle and auntie
have seen it before, and they get tired of
wandering, so I am put in the care of an excel-
lent Englishwoman who knows everything,
apparently, and who is paid to pass on as much
of her information to me as she possibly can.
Her voice is very monotonous, unfortunately,
so that I find myself nodding right on the
busses, in the midst of her discourses, and I am
afraid I am not learning one-tenth of what I
ought.

But at odd moments I catch sight of things
that enchant me.

The other day she and I were going to the
Tate Gallery together, and after leaving the

A TRAVEL LOG 215

bus we came out on the Embankment by means
of a curious little street, and suddenly, Carin,
we were face to face with some sort of a ship
wrecking place. It looked as if it had been
there for hundreds of years. The great enclo-
sure was heaped up with parts of ships, with
the giant beams and the masts, and hulls, and,
more interesting than all the rest, with count-
less figureheads.

Of course I knew that nearly every ship
carries its figure at its bow. It was for such
a purpose that the beautiful Victory of
Samothrace was built, wasn't it? But not until
I had seen these great wooden creatures, made
to represent Neptune and Boreas and Victory
and Venus and mermaids and angels, and
heaven knows what, did I have any idea what
care the ship builders put on these figures.

Miss Sheepshanks, my chaperon, of course
didn't want me to stop to look at them. She
was telling about the pictures waiting for us
at the gallery, and reminding me of the closing
hour, et cetera, et cetera, but for once I was
determined to have my way. So I pleaded with
her until she allowed me to go in. There was
a white-headed old man in charge, whose face

216 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

simply shone when I told him I would like to
walk around and look at his figureheads. So
we went side by side, Miss Sheepshanks fol-
lowing, looking as grieved as she could, and
that darling old man told me stories about the
ships these figures had come from.

I swear to you they literally smelled of the
seven seas! Ah, such strange, weird creatures
as some of them were, and their battered forms
told their own story of the storms they had
weathered and the sights they had seen.

" What a heap of stories you must know,"
I said to him.

"Stories?" he repeated looking at me with
his old, bright eyes. " Every ship could tell
as many stories as would make an Arabian
Nights. If I started in, miss, telling the stories
I know, I should never be done till the day of
my death."

'' I do wish I lived near here," I couldn't
help saying; "then I could come over and
listen when you were not busy. That is, if you
would be willing to tell some of your stories
to me."

" It would put life into my old age," he said
earnestly. " Now, miss, I'm something of a

A TRAVEL LOG 217

reader in my way. There is a library near that
I get my boOxks from, for thripence a day. Not
bad, is it? Even a poor man can afford that,
miss. But when I read the tales, I think to
myself: 'Why don't some of you writing
fellows come around here and ask the old man
a few questions? He could tell you tales of
the salt seas that w^ould make men's hair
bristle.' "

Miss Sheepshanks seemed to think this was
terribly strong language for me to hear, and
she tried to hasten me away, but I wouldn't
go till I had told him the story of Samuel
Bings and had a wonderful story from him in
return. I noted it all down in my diary, and
you shall read that, too. We went to the
Gallery after that, and saw some beautiful pic-
tures, but I am such a silly that my mind kept
going back to that old man and the stories he
could tell, and when we came out I insisted on
going by his place again, and we could see him
inside his little office, making his own tea. So
the next day, without telling anyone, I sent him
a pound of tea in a queer Chinese cannister,
just saying it was from the girl who liked
stories.

218 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

Well, well, I shan't see him again. They
hedge me around in every way. A maid or a
chaperon must be with me every minute. How
I wish I were free to go about and get
acquainted w^ith people! They — I mean Aunt
Lorena and all the powers of propriety — seem
to think that if I did I would have some awful
mishap. But do you know, Carin, I don't think
that would be the case. I feel as if right at my
hand there may be someone I ought to be
knowing and who ought to be knowing me.

That reminds me of what I so long dreamed
of doing down in Lee. Not only was I going
to take charge of the Industries and help the
mountain people as they never were helped
before, but I was going to have a home which
should be open to every passer-by. Before it
was to be a spring of water — I know the very
spring — where people could stop for a cold
drink, and beside the spring would be seats
where they could rest. Not far down the
road there would be a trough for horses and
another for dogs; and in my cupboard would
always be something for whomever was hungry.
It would not matter how poor or soiled or
strange any passer-by might be, he or she should

A TRAVEL LOG 219

come in and sit beside my hearth and have of
my best. Even very wicked people could come
in. And men on the chain gang, mending the
road — how I would like to take them out a
fine dinner and let them know I believed in
them. Perhaps they would let me eat with
them, and then maybe I could find out what
they were really thinking.

Carin, that is what I want more than any-
thing, I believe, to know what other people are
really thinking. I can't tell you how it inter-
ests, nay, absorbs me!

But in the sort of life that I lead now, no
one speaks out and says what he thinks. We
are endlessly polite. We all say the same thing.
We all do the same things. At times, it is true,
I see someone looking at me with the eyes of
true friendship, but we are parted by the
people about us, and we do not really become
acquainted. So I am very lonely, in spite of
all that is interesting and beautiful about me,
and I wish vou and I and Annie Laurie were
sitting together up in your little studio-room,
with the world far from us, and just we three
opening our hearts to each other.

I have been out to-day selecting some pres-

220 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

ents for friends back at home, and I enjoyed
that very much. Do you know, I couldn't
resist getting something for those two lonely
women, the Wixons, up on Hebron mountain
— the ones whose soup I ate uninvited. If ever
I get back to Lee, I shall ride up and get
acquainted with those women. Isn't it curious
how people draw you and draw you, even
people you have never met, but know only by
report? As for those you do know, they can
draw you half around the world. Yes, out of
the millions and millions of human beings on
this old globe, there will be but two or three,
perhaps, who are verily your own, and those
you must have.

A young man called on uncle yesterday,
bearing a letter of introduction. He lives, I
believe, in Baltimore, and his name is Gerald
Hargreaves. His father was a friend of uncle's,
and some mutual friend who knew that uncle
was over here, gave him the letter. I don't
think he was very keen about presenting it, but
we are glad he did, for he seems a delightful
young man. Uncle David took to him at
once, and so, for the matter of that, did Aunt
Lorena and I. He is an athletic young person

A TRAVEL LOG 221

with a general blond appearance and a nice
voice. He seems modest, too, and genial. He
finished college last year and has been traveling
around Europe, but he means to go back home
soon and settle down. He is to follow the
custom of his family and go into the railroad
business. Naturally, we talked about railroads
a good deal, and the methods of home and
foreign travel. He turned to me and said:

" What is your favorite means of travel,
Miss Knox? " And before I thought how it
would sound I replied:

" Oh, nag travel."

Aunt Lorena looked rather embarrassed, but
Uncle David roared.

" My niece is a true Southern mountaineer,"
he said, " and she isn't afraid of anything in
the way of horseflesh."

" Though I have been thrown," I admitted,
looking at Uncle David and thinking of the
fateful day that Paprika scampered up the
mountain away from Uncle David's machine.

" Fortunately," said Uncle David, and left
the young man to figure out what that might
mean.

" I'm glad you think it was fortunate, dear,"

222 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

I whispered to him. He gave my hand a little
squeeze under the table — we were at tea —
and I felt my heart warm up. When I think
that Uncle David loves me it brightens up
everything; but he is a quiet man and does not
say much. He likes to go his own way and
amuse himself after his own fashion, and he
doesn't wish to be bothered all of the time by
paying attention to those around him. As for
Aunt Lorena, she takes life as it comes. She is
very philosophical and patient and proud, and
she sinks back into her easy feminine place
and doesn't question anything. The trouble
with me is that I'm nearly bursting with
questions.

^' Ought I to do this? Ought I to think
that? Am I making the most of my opportu-
nities? Am I being myself, Azalea, or am I
imitating these others? Am I of any use or
am I just consuming good oxygen and nice food
and getting in the way generally?"

That's how I keep at it. I don't seem to
be able to give myself any rest, but must always
be badgering myself like that.

We are all going to the theater to-night to
see " A Winter's Tale." Mr. Hargreaves goes

A TRAVEL LOG 223

with us. I shall wear my white silk and my
peach-blow silk jacket. They are charming
together. I have a fillet of silver wheat for my
hair. Yesterday I sewed little perfume bags
— with violet powder in them — in all of my
frocks. Violet is the pleasantest of the per-
fumes, I think. Though Aunt Lorena uses
w^hite rose. What is 3^our favorite, Carin? I
have forgotten. Or perhaps when you and I
saw each other, I was not thinking much about
perfumes.

Well, now I think about all such things. I
have learned to approve of certain makes of
gloves and to disapprove of others. I know
what sort of laces an unmarried girl should
wear, and what ones should be reserved for
married ladies. I know — Oh, I know a thou-
sr^nd things! I hope little madam grandmother
w^ould approve of me. Though she is gone, I
still try to please her. Sometimes, when I have
tried particularly hard to be polite and gay
the way she would like me to be, I fancy I
feel her little jeweled hand on my head and
that I hear her say:

" You are doing very well indeed, my dear.
Really, I could ask nothing more of you."

224 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

What a pity grandmother could not have
passed on her charm as well as her money to
me!

But I am thankful for the money, though
money can never play a tremendously large
part in my life, because it is so much less
interesting than some other things. But as I
said, I have been out shopping, and you ought
to see what I bought Annie Laurie — a picture
of the sea that I know she will love. And I
got a watch for Paralee Panther — a wrist
watch. She's really a school-teacher at last,
as I think I told you, so the watch will be
useful. But I have presents for everybody.
Buying these things for the people dear to
me keeps me from feeling homesick.

Good night, Carin. It is time to dress for
dinner. And after that comes the theater, and
I am glad. I do love the theater! And best
of all I enjoy the moment when the curtain
begins to rise. It is such a throbbing moment.
What will one see? What story is to be told?
Will one forget that it is a play and believe
it all to be true? Will one like life better
for having seen it? Will one go out dancing
or weeping?

A TRAVEL LOG 225

Oh, it's a great moment when the curtain
begins to rise.

Azalea

Como, August 13.
Oh, my dear neglected friend:

I meant to have sent you a dozen letters
between my last one and this, but we have been
so busy that I simply could not write. I
thought I was a particularly strong person,
but I give you my word, Carin, that at the end
of a day of sight-seeing I am glad to eat my
dinner and slip into my bed. However, there
is usually something required of me between
the eating of the dinner and the seeking of
my couch, for we have been entertaining much,
and have been much entertained.

We left London late in May and sailed to
Genoa, and since then we have been seeing
Italy. As it chanced. Aunt Lorena fell in with
some old friends who have been living for years
near Fiesole, and they decided to journey with
us. This has given us the entree to many
homes which we should otherwise not have
seen, and it has all been very gay and diverting.

226 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

Never have I loved any place as I do Italy.
Such beauty, such pathos! I cannot express all
I feel, though my diary shall some day show
you that I have tried. But more of that some
other time, dear girl. I insist that we must
be together this winter for a while. Am I
right in thinking you will go home for the
winter, and that you are to have the delicious
experience of preparing your trousseau there
in your own dear old home? I want to help
with that. I have hunted out a few little
things that may find a place in it, and I want
to use my needle in your service.

Mr. Hargreaves has been everywhere with
us. I thought it odd of him to accompany us
to Venice and to Rome, since he had been in
both places only a few months ago. But it
was his affair. There was nothing to keep him
from visiting both places again if he chose. Of
course he has added to my pleasure, being
nearer my age than any of the others. Uncle
and Aunt Lorena appear to have much satis-
faction from his presence, too. They like him
immensely and talk about him a great deal.
They think him brilliant, but I am not sure
that I do. His mind clings too long to one

A TRAVEL LOG 227

subject. I like a little more agility. Weren't
you always amused at the way the minds of
Mary Cecily and her brother danced from
subject to subject? It was touch and go with
them. All they needed was half a sentence —
they understood the rest before it was spoken.

I think myself that no one ought to visit
Venice except with her own true love. To
float over those moonlit canals to the sound
of music, between those regal, slumbering pal-
aces in the company of mere casual acquaint-
ances or elderly relatives is too much to ask
of anyone.

We foui, uncle, auntie, Mr. Hargreaves and
I, were much in the gondolas, going now here,
now there, seeing strange old things and dream-
ing old dreams. Not at all, I am sure, because
he cares for me, but just because the surround-
ings were too much for him, Mr. Hargreaves
W'as inclined to be — well, a trifle sentimental.
But I couldn't endure that. Having the wrong
man make love is worse than going without —
Oh, much! But I didn't want to hurt his
feelings, so I took it all as a joke, and told
him to hold Aunt Lorena's hand; that she
was a much more sentimental person than I.

228 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

He sent me flowers every morning, but I
wouldn't keep them. There was a sweet Eng-
lish girl there who was not well, and I made
her take most of them. The rest I threw in
the canal — not as an insult to the flowers or
their giver, but because, when I was gondola
riding, it gave me pleasure to throw out a
rose now and then and see it drift w^ith the
tide. Aunt Lorena wasn't sure that I was
being kind to her friend, but I was, really.
It wouldn't have been at all kind to let him
think I cared when I didn't, w^ould it, dear?

We met a bright young fellow the other
day who had studied at the Academy of Design
with Keefe, and he said he thought Keefe had
decided to go into landscape work instead of
portraits, after all, which seems rather odd
considering what a success he was making with
portraits. I said:

"Why do you think he changed?"

" Oh, it's hard to say," he answered. " Keefe
doesn't seem the fellow he used to be. You
remember how jolly he was, and how he loved
company? It is different with him now. He
keeps much to himself and works beyond all
reason. I believe in being industrious, but

A TRAVEL LOG 229

there's no use in being a fanatic about work."
" But is he well? Does he look as he used? "
Suddenly I remembered that he had come
south years ago because his lungs were not
strong, and I turned cold at the thought that
the trouble that had threatened him, might
really have come back and fastened itself on
him.

" Oh, he looks well enough," the young man
replied. " Only a little wild and queer. But
O'Connor is queer, don't you think so? A sign
of genius, no doubt. He had a strange bring-
ing up, hadn't he? He's a gentleman, of
course; any one can see that; but he's rather
adventurous too; a strange mixture."

I didn't know what to say. I felt I should
betray myself if I talked about him any longer,
so I only ventured:

" He has a charming sister. She is one of
my best friends."

"Really?" said the young man. "Well, I
hear O'Connor is putting up a studio some-
where in the Blue Ridge and that he means to
try his hand at interpreting the mountains,
but I think myself, he had better have stuck
to portraits."

230 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

'' Very likely," said L

I have heard many conversations during the
last few w^eeks, Carin, but that is the only one
I remember.

How good to be able to write you like this!
I am so tired of keeping things to myself. We
shall be starting for home some time in Octo-
ber, I believe. I shall hope to write you, but
if I do not, think of me still, in spite of all
silences, as

Your loving friend,

Azalea

CHAPTER XIII

CROSSROADS

Mallovvbanks, November 15.
Carin, always best and dearest:

Here I am, back again. Back from Eng-
land, back from Italy. The first seemed to
me like the great Mother of my Mind; the
second like the eternal Mother of my Soul.
Always, as long as I live, I shall dream of
them.

And this is a good place for dreaming.
Indeed, there is little else to do here. The
old house lies in perpetual quiet. The garden
is dead again. You will remember that I
have only seen it when it was dead. I did
not mean to do it, but by accident, when I was
walking in it, I came on the little pool where
my darling grandmother was drowned, and
there were the three swans, aimlessly floating
about, just as they did that terrible twilight.

But I don't know that the swans go about

231

232 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

any more aimlessly than we do here in the
house. There is very little coming and going,
for we are in mourning. Uncle does not take
a daily paper. He says it frets him and that
there is really no use. He says he can get all
the essentials from the Weekly Eyrie. And so,
I suppose, he can. But all this helps to keep
us very quiet. It is as if we lived in an ivory
tower. We might be enchanted, so little do
we know of other lives than our own.

I said something like this to Aunt Lorena,
and she replied:

" It is only the reaction after your journey.
A person is likely to feel rather let down on
first coming home from a tour. Can you not
amuse yourself, Azalea, thinking over the
places you have seen? Oughtn't you to be
taking up your French again? I think I had
better arrange for Monsieur Angier to come
from Charleston once a week to teach you."

I thanked her, and went away to my room,
presumably to do as she recommended and
" think." But thinking is not living, Carin,
and I want to live. I don't want to remember.
I want to do! I'm tired of having other people
do things for me; I'm tired of being treated as

CROSSROADS 233

if I were better than other people; I'm tired
of being cheated of my youth by being made
to act as if I were seventy.

Yes, that is what it amounts to. I am being
cheated of my youth. I am so strong and
well, so restless and full of energy that I nearly
expire in this soft house, where everyone goes
quietly, and where we must not even pass things
at the table lest we break rules.

Carin, I want to " reach " for the bread and
to eat it with mountain honey, and I'm starving
for one of Ma McBirney's corn cakes, and I'd
like better than anything to have some bacon
and eggs for dinner — with just barely enough
to go around.

I tell you, I'm eating too much, I'm sleeping
too much. I'm moping too much! I wish I
could get on Paprika's back and go scurrying
down the valley, whooping as I go.

Well, let's talk of something else.

You say that Mrs. Kitchell is really going
to marry the feed store man. That is fine. I
must think what to send her for a wedding
present. I shall make it something quite gor-
geous — nothing sensible at all. She has had
so much good sense in her life that she must

234 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

be nearly dead of it. I think I'll get her a
table lamp with a rose-colored shade, and per-
haps a rose silk table cover to go with it. Dear
Anne Kitchell! I'm so glad some rose color is
coming into her life.

What about the Mountain Industries? Is
she going to give up the superintendence of
them? If so, who is to take her place?

You say someone has bought the little bench
on Mount Tennyson that I loved so much.
Can it really be so? Of course I might have
expected it, for it was the best building place
on the whole mountain. But, Oh, my spring
of sweet water, and my darling tulip trees —
which it appears aren't mine, after all, and
now never will be.

That was where I was going to build my
little shack and hold open house. Everyone
who went by was to be at liberty to stop there,
and I was going to share with them whatever
I had, and to listen to their stories, and to
give them comfort. Now I share nothing. No
one tells me anything. I give comfort to no
one.

But there I am, mooning again and making
myself sound very ungrateful in the bargain.

CROSSROADS 235

But I'll tell you, Carin, Uncle David and Aunt
Lorena do not really need me. They are as
kind as they can be, and of course we have
some very social and happy hours together, but
the whole truth of it is that they are quite
bound up in each other and do not really need
anyone else at all in their lives. Never having
had any children, and having found each other
so satisfying, the presence of another person in
the house is more of an interruption than a
satisfaction to them. No, I know I am not
needed here. That realization is growing on
me. Perhaps it is my fault. Maybe I have
not made myself needed. But at any rate,
this is the rather melancholy truth.

Yet is it a melancholy truth? Why not
cheerfully face the fact? Why not look the
whole situation in the face?

For, Oh, Carin, there is a place where I am
needed. It is at Lee, at the Mountain Indus-
tries. I know that no one else can look after
them as w^ell as I. Who else knows so many
of the mountain people? With whom would
they be as free and friendly as with Azalea
McBirney, the waif-girl they saw grow up
among them, the girl they taught to weave and

236 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

sew and knit? And now that I have been so
much with people of a different sort, I mean
with the friends of my uncle and aunt, I am
fairly well qualified to meet the other sort of
people, too, the visitors to Lee, who are the
patrons of the Industries. Yes, I should feel
quite at ease with them now. I think I would
know ways of bringing them and the mountain
people together.

That introduces me to a perfectly beautiful
thought! What is more, it is the first time I
have reached it. I am glad I came across it
when I was writing to you, because that lets
you in at the find. It is this: All I have lived
and experienced the last year has simply been
a part of my preparation for doing what I
always wanted to do. It has made me twice
as fit as I was before, to be the friend and
teacher of my dear mountain people. Isn't that
so, Sister Carin? Am I not ready now to come
back to Lee and take my place there, and to
spin my silver web? Oh, Carin, now, at last,
I can be the woman your dear father and
mother wanted me to be. I can serve the
people toward whom I feel the greatest loyalty
■ — the people of the mountains, to whom, for

CROSSROADS 237

Mother McBirney's sake, I owe endless grati-
tude. But gratitude quite aside, I want to do
it for myself. I want to be helped in helping
them. I want to live in broadening their lives.

So I think I am going to make up my mind
to come back to Lee.

Yes, I think I am.

I can feel myself making up my mind!

• •••••••

It is made up!

I am going over to Delight Ravanel's to tell
her about it. She will object, and then I can
listen to my own arguments and make myself
sure I am doing right. Then I shall come
home and let Uncle David and Aunt Lorena
know.

How excited I am!

I have just rung for young James to saddle
Bess. Now I shall put on my riding habit. -

Carin, don't you wish you were going to be
along?

Hastily and happily,

Azalea
Monrepos, one hour later.

Carin, Miss Ravanel understands everything.

238 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

She says she will stand by me. She quite agrees
that I must do something, and that I have a
right to live my life in my own wa}^, just so
it is not a selfish way. Now, giving up a for-
tune for the sake of liberty can't be selfish, can
it? Maybe it can. That is another thing I'll
have to think about.

Because, you understand, do you not, that
going back to Lee will mean going back to
freedom? I shall claim my privilege of giving
up the money grandmother left me, and of
framing my life as seems to suit my conscience
and desire — my deep heart's desire — the best.
That was where I stood before I went to
Europe, and it is where, after all this time, I
still stand. I have tried to see things as my
relatives wished me to, but I have not suc-
ceeded. I want to be myself, to make my own
choice in matters that concern my happiness,
and to be free to use my own powers.

Dear Carin, while I was merely considering
In a vague, abstract way whether or not I
should be able to marry the man of Uncle
David's choice, it was not so hard. He might,
by some possibility, choose the right man. But
that young man I wrote you of when I was

CROSSROADS 239

abroad, is expected here soon. His father and
Uncle David went to the University of Vir-
ginia together, and he is all that Uncle David
thinks a man should be. He is a fine fellow^,
too, Gerald Hargreaves is. I concede that. I
want him to be happy — with someone else.
He is cultivated, handsome, rich, gracious and
good-tempered. This recommends him. But
it does not make me love him. It might,
only —

You know of w^hat my only consists. I can-
not forget Keefe. I never hear from him. I
no longer even write to Mary Cecily, his sister.
She stopped writing me, first, and I inferred
that Keefe had, in his pride and sadness, asked
her to do so. He would not have any round-
about communications. He would hear from
me straight or not at all. So of course I
stopped writing.

Yet I feel that he remembers. Oh, Carin,
I feel that he does. But whether he does or
not really makes no difference. I must be true
to my own heart, and that wall not let me say
" I love you " to any man save Keefe.

If I were the old-fashioned sort of a girl, I
suppose I should not be writing in this w^ay, so

240 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

frankly and unashamed. But what have I to
be ashamed of? I cannot think it is wrong to
love Keefe. It seems the rightest thing in the
world to me. I feel no confusion of any sort
about it. I know my own mind. I can look
in it as if it were a nice clean mirror, and I
see Keefe there every time.

I have just told Delight Ravanel all this.
And what do you think she did? She kissed
me! I had looked for a sharp scolding.

So I am going back home greatly cheered
and strengthened. Yet I realize that it is a
hard task I have before me — the hardest that
ever has come to me. How I do hope I shall
prove myself brave. I want to be brave more
than anything. I mustn't cry! I won't cry!
It is too important a matter to cry about.

Miss Ravanel says she will come to Lee to
visit me. She hasn't been anywhere for twelve
years, except to Charleston now and then, and
sometimes to a distant neighbor's. I want her
to come and show mv mountain women how to
make blue and white work. It is a kind of
embroidery and lace combined, made on a
linen base. She says she will. Isn't she a
dear? I hope you'll not mind her wrinkles

CROSSROADS 241

and think her old. She looks a little old, but
she's really very young, judged by the things
that count.

Well, she has given me encouragement and
tea and sponge cake and this beautiful promise
to come and visit me in what she calls my exile.
Exile! In Lee! Near you and all the others
I love best. The only drawback to the whole
thing will be seeing somebody else's house go
up on my treasured building site. I do hope
to goodness that whoever is building it will
put up a charming house. I couldn't stand it
to see an ugly one there.

I'm writing this while Miss Delight is down
contracting with a man for six live turkeys.
I can't imagine what she is going to do with
them. How could she eat them all by herself,
or even with her servants to help? There are
only two and neither has any teeth to speak of.
Perhaps she likes to hear turkeys gobble. I
agree with her that it is a cheerful sound.

Well, she is returning. Farewell. I will
have Miss Ravanel's man mail this letter
for me.

Excitedly and rather fearfully,

Azalea

242 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

Mallowbanks, November 18.
My Carin:

It is done, my dear, it is done. I am free.
And the getting of the freedom has not been
so terrible as I feared it would be.

I went home from Miss Ravanel's that
afternoon with my courage, as you remember,
screwed to the sticking point. It was a glorious
afternoon, Carin, and although the summer
was gone, everywhere there were things to
remind me of how plenteous it had been. I
had not ridden far before I came to the Knox
estate, which is marked by low stone posts
with the letter "K" upon the top. The sun-
shine was over everything — over the wide,
well-kept fields, the beautiful woodlands, the
creeks, the broad, noisy shallows, the winding
roads, the houses of the tenants and the noble
structure of Mallowbanks. If ever there was
a fair domain it is this. And half of it is mine
— or was mine. ' I have given it up — resigned
all claim to it. I can hardly realize it yet.
But I must soon set my hand to certain signa-
tures, and then my sacrifice will be made
regular and legal, and Azalea will go out of
this house as poor as when she entered it.

CROSSROADS 243

Almost, that is. For it is true that I shall
have an annuity which will last as long as I do,
and will provide for my needs. Once, I sup-
pose, I would have called that a fortune. But
it seems very little now. Since I came here,
I have spent more a month on gifts than this
will come to.

But never mind all that. I must tell you
what happened. As I said, it w^as a glorious
afternoon, and I found my uncle and aunt
sitting in the great hallway before a fire, laugh-
ing and talking together very happily. When
I saw how contented they were with each
other, and how perfectly they fitted into that
beautiful home, I was able to comfort myself
by thinking of all they had to make their life
rich. They did not, as I have so often said,
really need me.

So, without even waiting to change from my
habit to my house garments, I went up to them
and kissed them both, and then I stood by the
side of the great fireplace and prayed for the
right words to come. All I could think of
was this — or something like this:

" Uncle David," I began, " Aunt Lorena, I
have come to say something very important."

244 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

Uncle David looked up sharply. I had had
a letter that morning from Gerald Hargreaves
and he knew it. I think he thought that what
I had to say related to that. So I shook my
head at him, and he knew I had been reading
his thoughts.

'' It has to do," I said, " with a princess who
was not fit to be a princess. She was a princess
with a very queer life. She had her high
inheritance, but she was born in poverty for all
of that, and she was reared in poverty, and in
the days when she was poor she used to dream
that some day her kingdom would be given to
her, and that she would find her own people
and live with them, beloved and loving. There
was no reason to suppose this dream would ever
come true, and certainly the princess never
supposed it would. Dreaming the dream was
just a game that she played to pass away the
time.

" Then, one day, by the strangest chance, her
people found her — her own people ^ — and so
kind and noble were they that they at once
acknowledged her and took her to her own
kingdom — though it might all have been
theirs had they not been so good and true

CROSSROADS 245

that it was a pleasure to them to do right and
to divide it between themselves and her. They
did all they could to make the princess happy.
The great house and the garden, the fields
and woods, were for her to enjoy. She was
taken on a journey to beautiful lands. She
was given tutors and books, gowns and jewels,
a horse after her own heart and many luxuries
which it would take too long to name. But
there was one thing she did not have, and that
was the right to make her own choice of the
sort of life she wished to lead. She must stay
within her kingdom, she must marry the prince
that her kin should choose, and she must live
as became one of her rank.

" Now it so happened that the manner in
which the princess had been reared did not
make it possible for her to consent to this,
although she wished from the bottom of her
heart to pay full duty to these kind and true
kinsmen of hers. But she had a higher duty
yet than that, and that was to be true to her
own soul. Day by day and hour by hour this
truth grew upon her: that it would be a great
sin for her not to be what she was made to be.
' Be what thou art ' she had once read in a

246 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

book. ' Be what thou art.' She could not
forget it. It seemed to her that there was great
wisdom in that saying.

" So she has come to tell her dear kinspeople
that she must let the fortune go. The houses
and lands, the streams and forests, are dear to
her, but they are not so dear as liberty. No,
not nearly so dear. But there is one thing
that is dear to her beyond words, and that is
the love of her kinspeople, and that she never
means to let go if she can hold on to it. What-
ever the cords are that tied them and her
together, she wants to make stronger and faster,
for as long as she lives she will love them and
be grateful to them.

" Yet she must be free. Will they under-
stand, and forgive? "

Then I cried. I said I wouldn't, that I
mustn't; but I did. Not with sobs. No, but
those miserable tears simply poured out of my
eyes over my cheeks and I couldn't stop them.
And Aunt Lorena cried, too. Only she cried
slowly. She sat with her long hands clasped
and let the big, lazy tears roll down her cheeks.
As for Uncle David, he grew red and then
white, and for what seemed a long time I stood

CPvOSSROADS 247

there, waiting, until after a long time Uncle
David said:

" Come to me, child," and I went to him,
and kneeled down by him, and he brushed back
m}^ hair and kissed me on the forehead.

" You were never," he said in a voice that
trembled a little, " so true a Knox as you are
to-day, my dear."

Oh, Carin, w^asn't that beautiful? I had
been afraid of his disapproval, but now I
seemed, in a way I cannot describe, almost
more afraid of his approval. It was hard for
me to stand his kindness when I had been so
determined to go my way.

Then I heard Aunt Lorena talking, but for
a moment or two my heart and brain were in
such an uproar that I could not really make
out what she was saying. But at last the words
got through to me.

" We know. Azalea, many things which you,
perhaps, do not give us credit for knowing.
We know that you are full of ambition and
that the life here seems meaningless to you.
Life has trained you in a different school from
what it has us. We believe if you had waited,
you would have come to see opportunities for

248 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

great good in this life here, but since it truly
does not appeal to you, I for one think you
ought to be allowed to go your way and live
the life you like. I know — we know — that
there lies behind this resolution your determi-
nation to have a free choice in other matters
than your vocation. Am I not right in this?"

" Yes," I said, and found the courage to
look straight into her eyes.

" I do not blame vou," she said. " I married
the man I loved, and I believe every woman
should do that if she can."

"At any price?" asked Uncle David, look-
ing first at me and then at her.

" Oh, at any price consistent with honor,"
she said.

" The price you pay is a large one," he said
to me. " I doubt if you appreciate how large."

" It would mean nothing to me if my heart
always hung heavily in me," I said.

" No," he agreed.

" No," echoed Aunt Lorena.

They are very tender with me. They deeply
regret the conditions of the will, but they have
no power to change them. As for me, I do
not wish any change made. I want all left

CROSSROADS 249

as my little grandmother desired. I resent
nothing. I have too much for which to be
thankful.

Carin, it seems incredible, but in a few days
I shall be at Lee. I will wire you when I am
coming. Ride up to see Mother McBirney.
Let her know everything. Tell everyone I am
coming home. Oh, how my heart beats at
thought of it! I can write no more. I cannot
see my page for these silly tears.

Azalea

CHAPTER XIV

" WHERE THERE IS A WILL "

The Shoals, November 24.
Dear Aunt Lorena and Dear Uncle David:

Just a line to say that I am safe here and
am sending Semmy back to you with many,
many thanks. She asked to stay with me, but
it was, I fancy, more to compliment me than
for any other reason. I would not keep her,
of course. She belongs to Ivlallowbanks, does
dear good Greenville Female Seminary Simms.
May heaven bless her. I hated to part with
her.

Dear me, how many kinds of homesickness
one may have. When I was away from Lee I
was longing for it; now that I am here I love
to dream of Mallowbanks. Still, I am glad
I am here. There is work awaiting me. In
fact, it is piled high, and someone was des-
perately needed to take hold of it. Lee is
bulging with nice visitors with fashionable-

250

''WHERE THERE IS A WILL" 251

looking purses, and they are wild to do things
and spend money. They would rather pur-
chase these mountain products than anything
else, because they are such quaint souvenirs
of this lovely place. But, alas, all is in confu-
sion in the little shop. The weavers have been
lazy, the basket-makers must have been wool
gathering, the pottery makers have all been
getting married — just like Ma Kitchell — and
there is, to say the least, the dickens to pay.

Mr. and Mrs. Carson had been most eager
to have me come back and take up the work,
but as you know, there was not a hint from
them that they wanted me, because, of course,
they would not in any way interfere with me,
nor tempt me to return. Anyway, I do not
suppose they had the faintest idea that I would
do so. But when they found that I was willing
and ready to take up the work, they were
simply delighted, and now they are doing
everything in their power to help my task
along. Within two or three weeks I hope to
have things running very well. I would like
to make a good showing before Christmas.

I am staying with my own Carin Carson
for the present, because I am not inclined to

252 'AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

take the long ride up and down the mountain.
It would be too exhausting. Moreover, since
I would not be able to help Mother McBirney
with the housework, I would very much object
to staying there and making her extra trouble.
But of course I wxnt up there the day after I
arrived. Things are going on quite in the old
way with the McBirneys. Except, of course,
that Jim is not there, being still at school. Hi
KitchelTs younger brother is a helper for
Father McBirney, and seems a fine, willing
boy. Father McBirney is pretty w^ell, consid-
ering his condition of a year ago, but he will
never be quite so strong and nimble as he once
was. Mother McBirney is well and happy in
her quiet way, and she sends her respects to
you.

I am asking a few friends for subscrip-
tions for the Industries. It would not become
me to place any limit on their generosity,
would it?

Oh, what an impertinent one I am to badger
you, when you have already done so much for
me!

How am I to thank you for everything?
How, above all, am I to express my gratitude

" WHERE THERE IS A WILL " 253

to you for your large-minded consideration for
my feelings and preferences? I am now a
worker in the world of workers, and I am very
happy, for a deep need of my being is finding
expression. Try to understand as well as to
forgive.

With abiding affection,

Azalea

********

The Shoals, December 5.
Dearest Miss Delight, my own beloved twenty-
seventh cousin:

Oh, why do you not come to see me? You
thought you might come along in a week or
two. It is more than a week or two and you
are not here. I am having such fun, but it
would be yet more fun if you were sharing it
with me.

I am selling things!

Yes, selling them at the Mountain Industries.

They are going like hot cakes. I haven't
made up my books yet, but from present indi-
cations I should say that the Mountain Indus-
tries would presently be very, very rich. Of
course I'm really not a good judge, because

254 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

this is the first selling I ever have done, and
it may have excited me a bit.

Let me tell you what I have been doing.
As I mentioned in the little note I wrote you,
things were rather at sixes and sevens here.
Mrs. Kitchell, who has had charge of the place
from the very beginning, was a fine worker
and was and is one of the dearest little things
that ever lived, but she v/asn't just the person
for managing a growing business. She was
better at weaving than at negotiating the weav-
ing of other folk, for example. Actually, when
I came to look things over I found quantities
of fine salable stufif tucked away here and there.
No one ever had come in and demanded
those particular things — not knowing of the
existence of them — and they had therefore
remained unsold.

I had the whole " kit an' bilin' " taken out
in the yard and spread around on bushes and
fences and the ground and aired and aired and
aired! Then I had the salesroom calcimined
a most magnificent pumpkin color. The deco-
rator was as stupid as a rabbit about mixing
the right color, so Carin came over and did it.
Then I had racks put around the wall. Some

a

WHERE THERE IS A WILL" 255

of them hung from the ceiling; some stood
on the floor. Also I had a few drawers and
shelves put up, and I got some show cases with
black finishings, and I furnished the room with
mountain furniture stained black. Also I have
the floor covered with extra heavy rag carpet-
ing in pumpkin yellow and black.

Fancy, if you please, how beautiful my
blue hand-woven coverlets and my brown-and-
orange and black-and-red counterpanes look
against this wall. Fancy how attractive is the
snarl of fine hand-woven baskets that I have
tied up on one side of the room.

What is more, we are nov\^ opening a regular
tea room. Mrs. Kitchell had had one at the
beginning, but it had fallen into nothingness.
Now I have one — the darlingest room — all
in golden brown and white. It complements
the other room in the nicest way, and yet is
very different indeed. I have some curious
Japanese dishes, sort of crackled in effect,
white and brow^n, and odd serving dishes in
dull yellow majolica. And we use the moun-
tain-made trays of willow and some of the
mountain pottery. I have three neat, svv^eet,
fleet mountain girls in here helping with the

256 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

tea room, and people simply throng to it. I
write out the little menu every morning before
I get out of bed, and one of these girls, who
really has a head on her, prepares the things
in the most appetizing manner.

" People," I said to her, " don't come in
here because they are hungry. They come
because they want to be amused. And they
won't be amused unless everything looks
beautiful."

Carin is doing a lot of the cooking. She
is doing it because she wants to know how to
cook. She is going to be married before
spring, and there is simply no use in her trying
to do anything in her own kitchen. The serv-
ants won't let her; or if they do consent they
all stand around and watch till she is so nervous
she can't do a thing. But over in our kitchen
she can do just what she pleases. She makes
those delicious little cakes called " hermits "
and "marguerites " and " rocks " and her sand-
wiches are as good to look at as they are to
taste. She has a new kind every day.

I am terribly stern with her about keeping
books, however, and she has to put down every
cent she SDends. The tea room must make

"WHERE THERE IS A WILL" 257

money for us or we'll not run it. I have
become fiercely practical.

Oh, how light my heart is! There is so
much to do each day that I can hardly get
through, and I fall asleep as soon as I touch
the bed, and am oblivious to the whole world
until my alarm goes off. But I set my alarm
pretty early because each day I must think out
my w^ork before I get up. I write out my
program for the day and insist on following it.

Of course quantities and quantities of people
come in the shop who do not purchase, but
I do not waste much time with them. I have
a little sign on the wall telling our patrons to
look around as much as they please, and when
they have made their selection to let us know.
I add that they are most welcome; whether
they purchase or no, they are to make them-
selves at hom.e.

Meantime, I have a pleasant young girl at
hand ready to wait on them when they wish
her to, and I, though I appear to be busy with
other matters, keep an ear cocked, and if she
seems to need reinforcing, I come to her assist-
ance. By the way, who do you suppose that
girl is? Why, she is Liza Wixon, from Mount

258 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

Hebron, the girl whose soup I sampled so
generously without invitation. I have per-
suaded both her mother and her to come down
and help me. So they have put their sadness
behind them and are working like good fel-
lows. Of course they have a secret of some
kind, but I shall never ask what it is.

I am sending off letters to our workers, beg-
ging them to hasten their wares to us, telling
them the demand for their work is here. All
we need is the goods.

No, I don't go anywhere. Do you wish I
would? When I first came home people began
giving me teas and all that, but I begged them
not to.

" Come and see me Sunday afternoons," I
told them. " I mustn't indulge in a social life.
I wouldn't have time and strength for that
along with all my work."

I knew the people who really cared for me
would come, and as for the others, it would be
better for them to visit their chosen friends
and not bother with me.

Well, why don't you come to visit me
and to help me with the Christmas trade?
Wouldn't it be the joy of the world to see

"WHERE THERE IS A WILL" 259

the exclusive Miss Delight Ravanel waiting
on people and wearing a pleasant saleslady's
smile? It would fill me with great glee.
Please come down here and let me see you
doing it.

Do you miss me? I miss you very, very^
much. Evenings, when I leave the drawing-
room and go up to my own quiet room, I think
of you sitting by yourself, so lady-fine and
peaceful beside your lamp, your busy needles
and thoughts going, and outside the trees sigh-
ing and the wind whistling. How still you can
be, dear friend. Is it hard to learn to be as
still as that?

I have been telling Barbara Summers all
about you. Of course she had met you at the
time of my coming-out party, but she couldn't
possibly know you — or even guess you — until
she had sat with you evening after evening
as I have, in so pleasant a " solitude of two "
and mined for your treasures of brain and
heart. For you hide your virtues as other
people do their faults.

Dear Delight R., I have had occasion when-
ever I went to Mother McBirney's, to go by
the place I used to call mine. I mean that

260 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

little, out-looking bench on the mountain-side
where the tulip trees rustle and the spring of
cold water whispers. I have already told you
that a house is going up there. Well, it is
beginning really to look like a house now, and
I cannot resist dismounting every time I pass
it, and looking it over.

It is going to be a bewitching house, nothing
less. There is a covered porch which in winter
is to be made into a sun room, that literally
hangs over the blue abyss, but so firmly is it
supported with its foundations of cement and
its huge beams of oak, that it is as firm and
enduring as the mountain-side itself. There
is a long, fine living room; the mantel
is to be of blue tile — yes, and the chimney
piece, too. It will be curious, will it not?
But I think I shall like it. There are two
bedrooms on the first floor, and there is, of
course, the kitchen and a small dining room.
The wood is chestnut, which takes on a beauti-
ful color when it is oiled.

Upstairs there Is a bedroom which reminds
me of my dear little loft at Mother McBirney's
only that it is, of course, to be very nicely fin-
ished ofif. It looks up the mountain-side, too,

"WHERE THERE IS A WILL" 261

and it opens on a sleeping porch. Then there
is a long room beside it, the use of which I do
not know. Perhaps it is being left undivided
merely because it is not needed for present use.
I have asked a number of persons who is build-
ing this house, but no one seems to know. The
contractor is a friend of mine, but even he
professes to know nothing. He says that a
man at Rutherford is doing all the business
with him, but that he understands it is for
some gentleman who wishes to have a quiet
spot to come to now and then, and who once
visited Lee and saw this beautiful building
site.

Well, if he had taken any other spot in the
whole county except the particular one that
he did, he would be welcome. But as it is,
he annoys me.

Haven't I chattered about enough? Mind,
I am looking for you. I want you to come
down and play at being a " rich merchant "
with me.

If you see the good people at Mallowbanks,
give them my love, please.

Fondly,

Azalea

262 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

The Shoals, November 21.
Dear Aunt Lorena:

I have just come home from the wedding of
my dear Annie Laurie Pace to Samuel Dis-
brow. It was quite a sudden affair at the
last. Of course they have been in love with
each other for years, and it must be a year
and a half since they became engaged. But
they were both so busy superintending the
dairy which Annie Laurie's father left her,
and following up their university extension
course, that we had about decided, Carin and
I, that they had forgotten all about getting
married.

But it seems that we were mistaken. They
were thinking about it all of the time.

The wedding was held in the Baptist
church, and there were three ministers to make
it what it should be. There was the Baptist
minister, who belonged there, and the Meth-
odist minister — Mr. Summers — who helped
because Annie Laurie loved him, and there
was old Mr. Mills, who came back from
Florida to put on the finishing touches, because
Annie Laurie had know him ever since she
was a baby.

" WHERE THERE IS A WILL " 263

She looked glorious, did Annie Laurie, so
tall and strong and fine, with her dark red
hair burnished like a bird's breast, all in her
white, with her floating veil. Instead of bride's
roses she carried a bouquet of great tawny
chrysanthemums the color of her hair. Sam
has grown to be a magnificent fellow and
everyone likes him. When I remember what
a pale-faced, anxious boy he was once, and see
what a strong, capable, independent fellow he
has become, I feel tremendously proud, not
only of him, but of Lee, which helped him to
make himself what he is. There was a time
when everybody thought him the son of a
thief, and when he was broken-hearted with
grief and shame, when he might have gone
down and become worse than nothing. But he
wanted to be good and fine, and everybody
in Lee turned in and gave him a boost. Annie
Laurie helped most of all, of course.

Now she has her reward.

They have gone away on a wedding trip,
and I am so glad. Never before has either
of them gone outside of the state they were
born in. But now she and Sam are ofif to the
North, and will visit New York and Boston,

264 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

Washington and Baltimore, and a number
of other places. Fortunately, they have a good
superintendent, and the dairy will get on very
well without them. I am going to stay in the
house with Annie Laurie's two aunts until she
returns. Aunt Adnah is very restless, and
Aunt Zillah cannot manage her very well, but
when I am there I can, I think, keep them
amused. I move over to-morrow, and shall
stay in Annie Laurie's own room, which is as
clean, if not as bare, as in the old days when
I knew it first.

How Annie Laurie did want dear old Hay-
stack Thompson to play at the little dance
after the wedding! But he is not to be found.
Never since he ran away from good little
Mrs. Kitchell has he been seen or heard of.
But I can't believe that any harm has come
to him. He is off in some other part of his
beloved mountains, fiddling for new friends.
I miss him terribly. Don't think me ego-
tistical, but I do wonder if he would return
if he knew that I was back here. He always
loved me quite out of proportion to my deserts.
It was because he helped to find me that time
I was kidnapped, I think, and because I was

"WHERE THERE IS A WILL" 265

such a queer, unlucky little girl and needed
him so much. But whatever the reason, we
are great friends, and I can not think of any-
thing that would give me greater pleasure
than to see him loping down the mountain-
side, with his fiddle under his arm, and his
hair all in a shock, like a windblown haystack.

I had no time to prepare a fit present
for Annie Laurie, the announcement of her
wedding was so unexpected. So now I am
weaving a counterpane for her of blue, orange
and white in the wheel and star pattern. It
is going to be beautiful, and will bring color
into her room, which always has been too
austere. Carin has ordered a beautiful rug
from New York, which will have the same
colors in it. And Mrs. Carson will give the
hangings of blue for the windows. So we
shall have a charming room for her by the
time she returns. The truth is, Annie Laurie
never pays any attention to herself or to the
things which she alone uses, beyond keeping
everything spotlessly clean and in order after
the immemorial fashion of the Paces.

But she deserves a beautiful bedroom, and
she shall have it.

266 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

I am so busy in the shop during the day
that I have to weave the counterpane at night.
I might have someone else do it, only I prefer
to do it with my own hands. Anyway, I
have to economize a bit. Not that I mind.
Which reminds me that the first installment
of the annuity dear grandmother provided for
me, arrived safely. Enclosed please find
receipt. Mr. Carson is paying me a nice little
salary for my work at the Industries. So I
am well provided for, as you see. But I
want to be a bit saving, because now, indeed,
Azalea is out for herself, and she does not
want to have to fall back on anybody.

I am sorry Uncle David does not write me.
He isn't vexed with me, is he? Oh, I know
he is disappointed. I know I seem to him
not to have done the right or the grateful
thing. But try to make him understand that
I love him. I had to go my own way, that
is all. And I am justified; I feel that in
my heart. I enjoy each moment as it comes,
and I continually feel that something yet more
glorious is about to happen.

With devotion,

Azalea

CHAPTER XV

" RING, HAPPY BELLS "

The Shoals, December 26.
My dear, dear Uncle and Aunt:

A happy New Year! Was it a merry
Christmas for you? Oh, I hope it was. You
had many of your kith and kin with you, I
know. I would have liked to have been there
if only I could have been in two places at
once. But you know how difficult that is.

And this year I had to be right here.

You still wonder why?

It is not easy to explain. But it had to be.
I felt the need of it. I have been working
my way back to the true, original Azalea,
and she was to be found here and not amid
all the luxury and quietude and tradition of
Mallowbanks. But now, I think, at last, she
is really found, and so she hopes that next
year you may be able to include her in your
Christmas celebration.

267

268 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

Let me thank you and then thank you again
for your beautiful Christmas gifts. A piano
of my own, and a music cabinet and folios
and folios of music! It was a royal gift and
I do not see just how ordinary thanks are
going to express my gratitude. All I can say
is that it shall be the comfort of my lonely
hours, and the joy of my bright ones, and
that I promise now that never shall I sit down
to this exquisite instrument without thinking
of the two who gave it to me, and being
thankful that my life met theirs. That my
life and theirs could not, for reasons, run
along in the same channel, makes the joy of
the meeting no less. I look at this wonderful
gift and find myself not quite believing that
it is really mine. This morning I could hardly
wait to dress to run into Carin's studio to
see If it really was there. Having no place
of my own, I have had it put in her lovely
room for the time being.

I have many things to tell you, and I am
going to try to tell them with proper dignity
as becomes your niece. I know I write
dreadful nonsense at times, and I know, too,
that I am too impulsive and enthusiastic. I

" RING, HAPPY BELLS " 269

remember that dear Father McBirney warned
me against those faults in my character years
ago, when I first came to him. I am afraid
I have not improved very much, but at least
I am aware that he was right, and that I
ought to be a more sober and calm person
than I am.

So, quite calmly and soberly, I am happier
than I ever thought anybody could be. I have
promised Keefe O'Connor to marry him. By
Spring I shall have done it — and you two
shall be here beside me, to deliver me with
all possible conventionality into his hands.

There! Did I not tell that soberly enough?

And now to go back!

I did not write to Keefe nor he to me. We
had promised you that we would not, and we
kept our word. I did not even let him know
that I was here at Lee, or that I had renounced
all of my right to my grandmother's splendid
legacy in order to be free to weave my own
silver web. No, I just worked and kept still.

But I confess that I knew that Annie Laurie
had written to Keefe's sister, Mrs. Rowantree,
all about it, and that I was morally sure she
would write to Keefe. But that, as you will

270 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

plainly see, was something over which I had
no control. Not, I will confess, that I tried
to have.

Meantime, I tried to be content, and I was,
really, but it was a contentment made up
largely of expectation. You see how frank
I am with you. Do you mind? It is Azalea's
way. You don't want her to try to be any
other way than is natural to her, do you?

Yes, I had a beautiful, deep-down, reassur-
ing sense of expectation. I felt as if Happi-
ness was journeying toward me.

" Maybe," I often said to myself, " she will
be a long while coming, but she is on the way.
By putting my ear to the ground, I am sure
I can hear her footsteps."

So I kept on working and working, and
the work thrived and I thrived. At night I
slept the sleep of the very weary, and all day
long I was playing the fine exciting game of
building up the business of the Mountain
Industries.

Then, when I had nothing else to do, I
dreamed dreams.

There was only one thing in the world that
bothered me, and that was the little house up

" RING, HAPPY BELLS " 271

on the mountain. It seemed too outrageous
that anybody — a stranger at that — should
have come down into the Blue Ridge and
bought and built on the one spot of all the
whole range that I had selected for myself.
To add insult to injury, he was putting up
precisely, identically, the sort of a house that
I had designed for the place. There was only
one way to account for that, and that was
that both he and I had selected the most
appropriate sort of a house for the place.
Such a house, I finally decided, must be inevit-
able in such a spot. And yet, after all, that
didn't quite account for the strangeness of the
fact that the place was such a materialization
of my dream. It really annoyed me. I did not
like that man. I was prepared to be disagree-
able to him.

And then, one day, I saw him.

It was a Sunday, clear and crisp and cold,
and I had been up to have dinner with Mother
McBirney. Jim was home, too, for the holi-
days, and the four of us sat in the quaint,
dear old room just as 'we used years ago.
Only now it was Jim and not Father McBir-
ney who said grace at table. It was he who

272 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

carved the turkey too. For it was a feast,
and we ate one of the turkeys which usually
are kept for market. But nothing is too good
for Jim, home from college. Or for Azalea,
who is keeping him there.

Yes, turkey we had, and yams cooked in
sugar and wild crab apple jelly and green
tomato pickles and molasses bread and biscuits
and gravy, and coffee and " stickies " for
dessert. To make stickies, you make a pie
crust and roll brown sugar in it. You are
always glad when you see them and sorry after
you have eaten them. Ma makes the best ones
in the South. Oh, yes, we were very happy.
The fire leaped in the old black fireplace,
and the hounds curled up before it and
whined with joy. Ma was a dream in her
blue dress and white apron with her dear
face shining with goodness and love, and Pa
McBirney was a picture with his whitening
hair. Outside the mountain dreamed and
dreamed, and told us how long mountains
lived, and what a little while mere folks had
for enjoying themselves, and warned us to
gather up all the sweetness we could while we
have a chance.

^' RING, HAPPY BELLS " 273

So we did. We ate and laughed and were
glad together; we tidied the little house and
then we sang and read. But all the time I
noticed Mother looking at me in a new way,
and sometimes the tears would come to her
eyes, and it seemed as if she never passed me
without dropping a hand on my head or my
shoulder. And Jim was tender too. He
neither teased me nor preached to me. He
was just sweet. As for Pa, he asked me if I
didn't think all of our ways were laid out
for us by One Who Knew What Was Best.
Oh, yes, it surely was a day long to be
remembered.

But it surprised me a little when they urged
me to start on my way.

" You mustn't be out after dark, my dear,"
said Mother McBirney, patting my hand. " I
want to think of you as safe at the Shoals
before the twilight comes. So you'd better
be on your way, honey-girl."

" But I want to stay," I pleaded.

" No, no," she laughed, " you want to go.
You may not know it, but you do."

So among them they got me into my things
and onto my horse. I miss my little Paprika

274 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

when I ride these mountain roads, and some-
times wish I could buy her back again. The
horse I ride is from the Carson stables, o-f
course, and is a fine, gentle creature which
Mrs. Carson often uses and which knows
every inch of the way.

To my surprise, Jim insisted on coming
along.

" But no," I said. "What is the use, Jim?
Stay with the folks."

" I need exercise, sister," he answered, still
in that surprisingly gentle way. " You must
let me do what I like when I am home so
seldom. I get discipline enough at college."

So off we went together, just as we used
in the old days when we were boy and girl.

" Jim," I said, " you aren't at all sorry that
you chose to be a minister?"

I never had had a chance to ask him this,
seriously, and I was glad of the opportunity.

" Sis," he said, " every day of my life I
am more and more thankful that I decided
to be one. It is only that — only living the
best I can and giving all my heart and life
to the service of the God who made this beau-
tiful earth and our wonderful bodies and souls

" RING, HAPPY BELLS " 275

— that can satisfy me. I must do it. I live in
the thought of it"

I looked at him as he rode beside me and
saw how his face had strengthened and beauti-
fied, and I wondered how such things hap-
pened; how it was that little commonplace
teasing boys grew up to be men like the one
beside me.

" Oh, Jim," I cried, holding out my hand
to him, " I congratulate you from my deepest
heart. I feared that your taking up of the
ministry might be a mood; that you might
change. But now I see you never will. You
will be a tower of strength, brother Jim, and
in the years to come when I am troubled
about life, I shall come to you for help."

" It is you who always have helped me,
Zalie," he said. " It is you who are making
it possible now for me to prepare for my
great work."

I write you all this, dear Uncle and Auntie,
to show you how sweet he is and how inter-
esting and peaceful my life is here, so you'll
not be sorry, thinking of all I let go from me.

Well, we went on down the road, looking
at the purple valley with the shafts of smoke

276 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

arising straight from the houses below and
towering, silver bright, in the light of the
lowering sun. I was so absorbed with it all
that I did not realize how rapidly we were
covering the road, till suddenly I saw we
were beside the house on the bench.

And what do you think? There was a
shaft of silvery smoke arising from that chim-
ney, too, and it was shot through with little
sparks like stars, as if the fire it came from
had been newly lighted.

" Oh," I cried, " the owner of the house
has come! "

I had been so happy all day that I forgot
to be disagreeable, and though I had quite
made up my mind to dislike this person
intensely, I neglected to do it at that moment,
for thinking of how happy he must be to
have come to his beautiful little house. I
wondered too if his wife was with him, and
what she was like. Then I remembered that
I had heard he was not married, and I
thought:

" He can never be lonely amid such beauty.
To look ofif on a scene like this will be com-
pany enough."

It was Keefe O'Connor who stood there holdmg out
his hands to me.

" RING, HAPPY BELLS " 277

But I knew that wasn't really so. No
beauty, however great, can comfort one for a
lonely hearth; no meal is delicious for which
only one place is set.

Then, out of that purplish gloom and from
the shadow of the porch at the side of the
house I heard a voice saying lazily:

" Won't you be pleased to 'light and
come in? "

It had the mountain drawl and the mountain
way, but there was something wrong with it,
and it made me look inquiringly at Jim. He
was wearing a broad grin — a perfectly won-
derful, old-time-Jim grin.

"Shall we?" said he.

Curiosity got hold of me and flung me off
that horse and sent me right up to the stranger
on the porch.

" It is very kind of you," I said in a fine
Mallowbanks manner, " and we shall be
delighted. We have so long been interested
in the building of this beautiful little house,
and we did not know its owner — "

Then I said no more.

It was Keefe O'Connor who stood there
holding out his hands to me.

278 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

" I'll put up the horses, sis," said Jim with
a little funny break in his voice. And then
Keefe drew me into the lighted room.

You two have been such true lovers for so
many years, that I need tell you nothing about
what that moment meant. No, I need not tell
you anything at all.

After a while we went into the long room
where the fire was leaping.

"Oh," I cried, "it is perfect!"

For the room completely suited me.

" It is bare," said Keefe. " But I left the
furnishings to you."

I said nothing. I laughed. It was dififerent
from any other laugh I ever had. I laughed
and laughed.

" What is so amusing? " asked Keefe at last.

" Nothing is amusing," I said. " I am not
amused. I am happy."

" Oh," he said, and then he laughed too.

By and by he asked :

"Ought I to have waited longer?"

"Why should you?"

" I shall paint here half the year or more,"
he explained. " Then, when I must, I shall
go to the cities. It will be necessary. I must

" RING, HAPPY BELLS " 279

hold my exhibits, visit the art academies, see
what other men are doing — keep in touch
with the world. But this shall be my home —
our home."

" Shall we give it a name? "

" I have thought of hundreds and rejected
them."

" Perhaps Jim can name it for us."

We went to look for him and found him
star-gazing. His teeth were beginning to
chatter a little, I am afraid, with the sharp
chill of the air.

" Jim," I said, giving him a good hug and
kiss, " I didn't think you would keep a secret
from your Zalie."

Dear old Jim! He gave me such a squeeze
and let loose a big, blundering kind of a laugh,
and then we brought him in and we all sat
around the fire and talked. I never knew just
how much like a brother he seemed to me
till that moment.

We asked him to name the cottage for us,
but he could think of nothing, and then, quite
suddenly it came to me. I would call it
'' Delight Cottage " in honor of my own dear
Delight Ravanel.

280 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

Don't you agree with me that it is a good
idea?

But I haven't told her yet. I thought I
would keep it a secret until she came to visit
me, which will be in a few days now. Keefe
said he would himself make the sign and
place it at the gateway — the same gateway
being nothing less than two of my beloved
tulip trees.

Keefe told me he had come down to finish
some paintings, and that he would go on
living right there in the cottage, working on
certain parts of the house himself, such as
the staining of the wood, the making of fire
screens and benches for the chimney side, and
various other things. He said there was work
enough to keep him busy in his odd moments
for a year or two. Mrs. Babb is coming over
to cook for him and to keep " Delight Cottage "
tidy.

Well, a little later in the evening Jim
started me on my way again, only this time
both he and Keefe were my cavaliers, and I
burst into the drawing-room at the Shoals
expecting to give them the greatest sort of a
surprise, but I was vastly disappointed. They

"RING, HAPPY BELLS" 281

only laughed at me. They had known all
along that Keefe was building the house, and
they had met him at the train and had taken
him up to Delight Cottage themselves, I all
the while toiling away in my shop. He
wanted, it seems, to make the place look as
well as it could in its incomplete state before
I saw it.

Ah, what a happy, happy girl I am! Only
one thing troubles me, and that is your possible
disapproval. Keefe is writing you, I believe.
He said to me more than once:

" I do hope your uncle and aunt are not
going to think that I have done wrong. I
have cared more for your happiness. Azalea,
than for anything on earth, and if I had for
one moment believed that you would have
been happier if I had withdrawn myself
entirely from your life, I would have done so
without regard to my lifelong loneliness. But
when I heard that you had resigned your
inheritance and come back here, I was forced
to conclude that it was a sign and token
to me."

" It was," I confessed. " Just that."

Well, my dear kinfolk, Christmas came with

282 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

all its pleasures, and it brought me your beau-
tiful gift, also my ring from Keefe, and lovely
things from the Carsons and from many other
friends. Even there were many remembrances
from my mountain people.

There was one gift — or token, rather —
which filled me with the greatest surprise.
It was a copy of Delight Ravanel's will,
bequeathing to me all of her possessions when
the day comes that she must go into the Other
Land. Oh, I hope it will be many, many
years till then!

Try to fancy my amazement. Truly, I
never was more surprised in my life, although,
as you know, I have had a good many surprises
for a person of my age.

Moreover, she is coming to see me next
week, and in preparation for her visit I have
had Mrs. Kitchell's old living rooms fitted
up all fresh for us. There is a little sitting
room, and a kitchen and two bedrooms. With
the help of my always kind Mrs. Carson, the
place has been made — or is being made — as
cosy and dainty as you can imagine. Mrs.
Wixon will help me keep house, and I shall
be quite independent and settled. Of course

" RING, HAPPY BELLS " 283

Mrs. Carson and Carin beg me to stay with
them, but I feel I have been their guest quite
long enough. Now — only fancy — I shall be
able to entertain them at times, and to return
in some small measure the endless hospitality
they have shown me. I think Cousin Delight
will love this little experiment in housekeep-
ing, and I wouldn't be the least surprised to
see her taking an interest in the weaving and
basket-making and in the little shop. It would
be the best thing in the world for her if she
would, for life certainly is pretty drowsy at
Monrepos, where she has lived so long alone,
remembering and brooding and doing her
little solitary tasks. If I have my way she
shall stay with me or near me altogether.

So you see into what a shining and rapid
current my little life has been swung. And
you will forgive me for everything I did
not do and for everything I am doing. I
insist on being forgiven — and loved. You
must love me when I love you so much.

When I am married you must be my first
guests. Until you come, I shall have no one.
I would never be satisfied if you did not dedi-
cate my house for me by your presence.

284 AZALEA'S SILVER WEB

The wedding day is not yet set exactly. It
will be in the early summer, after Keefe has
finished some orders he has, and so is feeling
quite rich, and after I have really got the
Mountain Industries in such a condition that
I can safely pass them on to others. Even
after I am married I shall keep an overseeing
eye on them, and Mrs. Carson and Carin will
help me. Then, of course, there is my trous-
seau to make. I am so glad you let me have
dear little madam grandmother's chests. I
think I can make over her wedding dress so
that I can wear it, and of course I shall wear
her veil.

If you will send on the portrait that she had
painted for me, I can hang it above my new
piano in my little sitting room. Or shall I
hang it above my fireplace? I must try and
see in which place it looks the best.

My heart is singing with joy, and I send
you a thousand little carefully wrapped pack-
ages of love. Undo them one by one and
think of

Azalea

w^

(I